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PAULINE  FORE  MOFFITT 
LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


JAMES    K.  MOFFITT 


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University  of  California,  San  Diego 
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A  MEMOIR  OF 

THE   RIGHT    HON. 

WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE  LECKY 

M.P.,    O.M.,   LL.D.,   D.C.L.,   LITT.D. 

Member  of  the  French  Institute  and  of  the  British  Academy 


WORKS  BY 

WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND   IN   THE   EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY. 
Library  Edition.    8  vols.    8^'o. 
Vols.  I.  and  II.,   1700-1760.     Vols.  III.  and  IV.,  1760-1784, 
Vols.  V.  and  VI.,  1784-1793.     Vols.  VII.  and  VIII.,  1793- 
1800. 

„  r  ENGLAND.    7  vols.    Crown  8vo. 

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LEADERS    OF    PUBLIC    OPINION    IN    IRELAND. 

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HISTORY  OF  THE  RISE  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE 

SPIRIT    OF    RATIONALISM    IN    EUROPE.     2  vols. 
Crown  8vo. 

DEMOCRACY  AND  LIBERTY. 

Cabinet  Edition.    2  vols.    Large  Crown  8vo.    $5.00  net. 
THE  MAP  OF  LIFE:  Conduct  and  Character.  Crown  8vo. 

$2.00. 

HISTORICAL  AND  POLITICAL  ESSAYS.   8vo.   $3.50 

net. 

POEMS.     Fcap.  8vo. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEGO 


I 


3  1822  02694 


500 


(/L^ 


A    MEMOIR    OF 

THE  RIGHT  HON. 

William  Edward  Hartpole  Lecky 

M.P.,  O.M.,  LL.D.,  D.C.L.,  LITT.D. 
Member  of  the  French  Institute  and  of  the  British  Academy 

BY 

HIS    WIFE  X    // 


You  value  life  ;  then  do  not  squander  time,  for  time  is  the  stuff  of  life. 

Franklin 


LONGMANS,   GREEN,   AND    CO. 

91  AND  93  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 
LONDON,  BOMBAY,  AND  CALCUTTA 

1909 


Copyright,  1909,  by 
Longmans,  Green,  and  Co. 


PREFACE 

This  memoir  has  been  written  in  accordance  with  the 
wish  expressed  by  many  of  Mr.  Lecky's  friends  that 
there  should  be  some  record  of  his  Hfe.  '  It  is  the  priv- 
ilege of  a  great  writer/  wrote  one  of  them  after  his 
death,  'to  leave  an  immortal  personality  behind  him; 
but  though  his  books  will  live,  there  was  much  about 
his  rare  and  singularly  fine  type  of  character  that  one 
feels  that  those  who  did  not  come  under  his  personal 
influence  will  never  fully  realise.'  To  recall  that  per- 
sonal element  as  far  as  possible  —  without  infringing 
more  than  he  would  have  wished  on  the  domain  of 
private  life  —  has  been  my  endeavour.  Lecky  himself 
never  encouraged  the  idea  that  there  should  be  a  biog- 
raphy of  him.  On  the  contrary,  he  wished  to  live 
through  his  books  alone.  He  did  not  keep  a  journal. 
He  did  not  think  it  worth  while  that  his  daily  doings 
should  be  recorded.  A  little  'pocket-diary,'  with 
some  notes,  of  the  year  1855,  and  a  series  of  minute 
almanacks,  with  two  interruptions,  from  the  year 
1862  upwards,  in  which  he  wrote  down  every  Monday 
the  place  where  he  was,  are  all  that  exists  in  that  line. 
Such  details  about  his  boyhood  as  have  been  given  in 
this  memoir  were  gathered  chiefly  by  me  from  his  own 
lips.  Unfortunately  there  are  no  letters  of  his  of  that 
time.  From  the  year  1859 — when  he  was  twenty-one 
—  he  kept  commonplace  books  which  contain  his  views 


VI  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

on  a  variety  of  subjects,  and  at  a  later  period  he  made 
entries  in  a  notebook  about  the  progress  of  his  literary- 
work.  His  early  letters  to  friends  throw  a  good  deal 
of  light  on  the  formation  of  his  character  and  opinions, 
and  I  am  especially  indebted  to  Mr.  Arthur  Booth  for 
letters  and  extracts  from  letters  and  for  information 
about  his  college  life.  Mr,  Booth  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  his,  and  corresponded  with  him  from  the  time 
he  left  the  University.  Another  college  friend,  the 
late  Judge  Addison,  also  kindly  gave  me  a  few  letters 
and  recollections  of  those  days.  A  certain  number  of 
letters  besides  have  been  placed  at  my  disposal,  and 
for  these  my  thanks  are  due  to  the  Dowager  Mar- 
chioness of  Dufferin  and  Ava,  the  Lady  Margaret  Cecil, 
the  Dowager  Lady  Acton,  Madame  de  Beaufort,  Mrs. 
Bayard,  the  Hon.  Emily  Lawless,  Lady  Blennerhassett, 
Mrs.  Tyndall,  Mrs.  J.  R.  Green,  Mrs.  O'Connor  Morris, 
Mrs.  C.  Litton  Falkiner,  Miss  Taylor,  Miss  Honor 
Brooke,  Miss  Hartpole  Bowen,  Miss  A.  Wilmot  Chet- 
wode.  Miss  Froude,  Lord  Killanin,  the  Hon.  Albert 
Canning,  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  Sir  Henry  Wrixon, 
Sir  Thomas  Snagge,  Mr.  J.  F.  Rhodes,  Mr.  H.  C.  Lea, 
Professor  Knight,  Mr.  W.  E.  Tallents,  Mr.  E.  Salmon, 
Mr.  T.  Norton  Longman,  Mr.  G.  Gavan  Duffy,  Mr.  A. 
O'Neill  Daunt,  the  executors  of  Mr.  G.  AV.  Rusden,  and 
the  late  Sir  James  Gowan. 

It  is  not  without  great  hesitation  that  I  give  to  the 
world  letters  which  were  never  intended  for  publication, 
and  which  were  written  with  all  the  freedom  of  private 
intercourse;  but  I  venture  to  do  so  in  the  belief  that 
some  of  these  spontaneous  expressions  of  opinion 
represent  more  vividly  than  any  description  could  do 


PREFACE  Vll 

the  characteristics  of  a  personaHty  which  those  who 
knew  him  best  had  most  occasion  to  admire. 

Rather  than  ask  friends  to  write  appreciations  of 
him  I  have  confined  myself  to  inserting  some  letters 
written  to  him  on  various  occasions,  and  a  few  to  my- 
self, in  which  the  writers  expressed  their  views  concern- 
ing him  and  his  work.  I  gratefully  acknowledge  the 
permission  to  do  so  given  me  by  the  Dowager  Mar- 
chioness of  Dufferin,  Countess  Stanhope,  Mrs.  Bayard, 
the  Hon.  Andrew  White,  Lord  Tennyson,  Lord  Rath- 
more,  the  Hon.  Rollo  Russell,  the  Right  Hon.  Sir 
Alfred  Lyall,  Sir  Henry  Wrixon,  the  Dean  of  St. 
Patrick's,  Dr.  Mahaffy,  Dr.  Dowden,  Mr.  Arthur 
Milman,  Mr.  Gladstone's  trustees,  Mr.  H.  C.  Lea,  Mr. 
C.  Cairnes,  Mr.  A.  Bence  Jones,  and  Mr.  T.  Norton 
Longman.  I  also  much  appreciate  the  courtesy 
shown  me  by  the  proprietors  of  the  Thnes,  the  Spec- 
tator, and  the  Dublin  Daily  Express,  in  allowing  me  to 
make  use  of  papers  and  letters  of  Mr.  Lecky  which 
were  published  by  them.  Mr.  Booth  has  had  the  great 
kindness  to  read  over  my  MS.  and  to  make  many  use- 
ful suggestions. 

In  order  to  condense  the  story  of  a  full  life  of  sixty- 
five  years  into  one  volume,  much  had  necessarily  to 
be  omitted,  and  the  letters  sent  me  by  several  corre- 
spondents could  not  on  that  account  be  included ;  but 
I  am  none  the  less  grateful  to  the  senders.  The  social 
side  of  his  life  had  to  be  kept  within  proportionate 
limits,  and  it  is  with  regret  that  I  have  been  unable 
to  bring  within  its  scope  the  names  of  many  whose 
kindness  and  friendship  he  valued. 

Elisabeth  Lecky. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
Pbeface    V 

List  op  Portraits xv 

CHAPTER  I 

1S38-1S61 
Lecky's  parentage.  Family  history.  His  mother's 
death.  His  father  marries  again.  Graigavoran. 
Visit  to  Scotland.  School  Ufe:  Lewes;  Monkstown; 
Armagh;  Cheltenham  College.  His  father's  death. 
Quedgeley.  Marriage  of  his  stepmother.  Bushy 
Park.  Enters  Trinity  College  Dublin.  Friend- 
ships. Divinity  course.  Oratory.  Historical  So- 
ciety. Gold  medal.  Early  poems.  Travels.  Pub- 
lication of  the  'Religious  Tendencies  of  the  Age.' 
He  graduates  and  leaves  the  University.  Switzer- 
land. Oberammergau.  Italy.  Publication  of 
'Leaders  of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland'.      ...         1-30 

CHAPTER   II 

1861-1867 
First  visit  to  Spain.  He  decides  not  to  take  Orders. 
Begins  the  'History  of  Rationalism.'  Naples. 
Monkstown.  Italy.  Bagneres.  Chapters  on  the 
Declining  Sense  of  the  Miraculous.  Pyrenees. 
Second  visit  to  Spain.  Reads  in  foreign  libraries. 
Views  about  a  profession.  Lecture  at  Portarling- 
ton.  Publication  of  the  'Rationalism.'  Reviews. 
London  Society.     Visit  to  tenants.     Venice.    Spez- 


X  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

zia.    Meets  Mr.  Lever.     Bagneres.    Montreux.     Dr.        page 
Newman.   Begins  the  '  History  of  European  Morals.' 
Literary  methods 31-57 

CHAPTER   III 
1867-1870 

Settles  in  London.  Lord  Russell.  Elected  to  Athenaeum 
Club.  Mr.  Gladstone.  Reform  Bill  of  1867.  Ba- 
gneres. Lord  Carnwath's  death.  Lecture  at  the 
Royal  Institution.  Irish  Church  disestablishment. 
Publication  of  the  'History  of  European  Morals.' 
Reviews.  Irish  Church  Bill.  Grand  Jury  in  Queen's 
County.  Third  visit  to  Spain.  Lord  Morris.  Rome. 
CEcumenical  Council.  San  Remo.  Irish  Land 
Bill 58-80 

CHAPTER   IV 
1870-1873 

Queen  Sophia  of  the  Netherlands.  The  House  in  the 
Wood.  Franco-German  war.  Revision  of  the  '  Lead- 
ers of  Public  Opinion.'  Engagement.  Views  on 
the  peace  conditions.  Darwin's  'Descent  of  Man.' 
London  life.  Marriage.  Travels.  Publication  of 
the  revised  edition  of  the  'Leaders.'  Florence. 
Rome.  Proposes  to  write  the  '  History  of  England 
in  the  Eighteenth  Century.'  Return  to  England. 
Knowsley.  London  society.  Mr.  Carlyle.  Irish 
university  education.  Review  of  Mr.  Froude's 
'English  in  Ireland.'     Family  bereavements       .      .     81-113 

CHAPTER  V 

1873-1878 

Dutch  coimtry  life.  Ireland.  Views  on  a  seat  in  Par- 
liament.    A  Home  Rule  debate.     Working  habits. 


CONTENTS  XI 

British  Museum.  Record  Office.  The  Literary  page 
Society.  The  Club.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  Pro- 
fessor Huxley.  Scheme  of  the 'History.'  Visit  to 
Ireland.  Irish  friends.  Reads  MSS.  in  Dublin 
Castle.  Revises  the  '  History  of  European  Morals.' 
Atlantic  Coast  scenery.  Speeches.  Return  to  Lon- 
don. Bulgarian  massacres.  Mr.  Gladstone's  Black- 
heath  speech.  Paris.  St.  James's  Hall  Conference. 
Completion  of  the  first  two  volumes  of  the  '  History.' 
Death  of  Queen  Sophia.  Death  of  Mr.  Motley. 
St.  Moritz.  Publication  of  the  first  two  volumes. 
Aim  of  the 'History.'     Appreciative  letters  .      .      .   114-144 

CHAPTER  VI 

1878-1882 

Portrait  by  Watts.  Visit  to  Oxford.  Italian  lakes. 
Switzerland.  Visit  to  Professor  Tyndall.  Senior's 
'Conversations.'  Spencer  Walpole's  'History.' 
Irish  university  education.  The  Hague.  Ireland. 
Dublin  University  degree.  Mr.  Gladstone  on  the 
Evangelical  Movement.  Reply  in  the  'Nineteenth 
Century.'  Reads  MSS.  in  Dublin  Castle  and  Four 
Courts.  Death  of  Mr.  Bowen.  Henry  Brooke.  Let- 
ters to  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt.  M.  Renan.  Visit  to  Ten- 
nyson. Carlyle.  Dissolution.  More  letters  to  Mr. 
O'Neill  Daunt.  Carlyle's  death.  'Reminiscences.' 
Carlyle  Memorial.  Irish  Land  Act,  1881.  Mr. 
O'Neill  Daunt's  'Catechism  of  the  History  of  Ire- 
land.'   Mr.  Richard  Brooke's  hymns 145-184 

CHAPTER   VII 

1882-1886 

Publication  of  volumes  iii.  and  iv.  of  the  'History.' 
American  appreciation.  Lord  Acton.  Tour  in  Spain. 
Phoenix  Park  murders.  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt.  Dublin. 
Madame  Ristori.     State  Papers.     Condition  of  Ire- 


Xll  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

land.  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy.  Trials  of  Phoenix  page 
Park  murderers.  Tipperary.  Jura  Mountains.  Mr. 
J.  R.  Green.  Transvaal  delegates.  M.  Mori. 
Switzerland.  Amiel.  M.  de  Gonzenbach.  Soudan 
expedition.  Gordon.  Lord  Wolseley.  LL.D  de- 
gree, St.  Andrews.  'On  an  Old  Song.'  Sir  Henry 
Taylor's  Autobiography.  Paris  Archives.  'The 
Dawn  of  Creation  and  of  Worship' 185-211 

CHAPTER   VIII 

1886-1888 

Anticipations  of  Home  Rule  Bill.  Letters  to  the 
Times.  Split  in  the  Liberal  Party.  Speech  in 
Kensington  Town  Hall.  On  a  Nationalist  Parlia- 
ment. Sir  W.  Harcourt  and  Grattan's  Parliament. 
Demand  for  the  'Leaders.'  Defeat  of  Home  Rule 
Bill.  Completion  of  volumes  v.  and  vi.  of  the 
'History.'  Travels.  Lake  of  Geneva.  Publication 
of  the  new  volumes.  Letters  and  Reviews.  Holi- 
day in  Italy.  Irish  Vice-Royalty.  Jubilee.  Tour 
in  the  Harz.  Paris  Archives.  Canon  Miles.  Lib- 
eral Unionist  meeting  at  Nottingham.  Pelham 
Papers 212-236 

CHAPTER   IX 

1888-1890 

Unionist  Textbook.  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold.  Speeches  at 
the  Literary  Fund  Dinner  and  at  the  Academy. 
Portrait  by  Mr.  Wells  for  Grillion's  Club.  D.C.L. 
degree,  Oxford.  Donegal.  Wexford.  Monaster- 
boice.  Democracy.  Parnell  Commission.  Anti- 
Home  Rule  Meeting,  Birmingham.  Mr.  Bryce's 
'History.'  Harz  Mountains.  Completion  of  the 
'History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century.' 
Bust  by  Boehm.    His  death.    Formative  influences. 


CONTENTS  Xlll 

Miss  Lawless'  'Essex  in  Ireland.'      Cardinal  Man-        page 
ning.     On  Catholicism.     Death  of  Newman.     Sum- 
mer holidays.     Grande  Chartreuse.     Publication  of 
the  last  two  volumes  of  the  '  History.'       Reviews 
and  letters 237-260 

CHAPTER  X 

1890-1892 

Revision  of  the  'History  of  the  Eighteenth  Century.' 
Writes  various  essays:  Ireland  in  the  Light  of 
History;  Why  Home  Rule  is  Undesirable;  Madame 
de  Stael;  Carlyle's  Message  to  his  Age;  Sir  Robert 
Peel's  Private  Correspondence.  American  Copy- 
right Bill.  Effects  of  Parnell  divorce  case.  Litt.D. 
degree,  Cambridge.  T.C.D.  dinner.  Travels. 
Poems.  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Begins  '  Democ- 
racy and  Liberty.*  Regius  Professorship  of  History 
at  Oxford.  Royal  Literary  Fund.  Letters  on  Home 
Rule.  'The  Political  Outlook.'  Sir  Charles  Gavan 
Duffy.  Dublin  University  Tercentenary.  General 
Election.  Holiday  in  the  Alps.  'The  Political 
Value  of  History.'  Lord  Tennyson's  death.  Com- 
pletion of  the  revised  edition  of  the  '  History '  .    . .       261-282 

CHAPTER  XI 

1892-1894 

'Thoughts  on  History.'  Home  Rule  Bill,  1893.  Articles 
on  Home  Rule.  Carrigart.  Letter  on  the  situation. 
Albert  Hall  meeting.  Irish  delegates  at  Hatfield. 
Death  of  Lord  Derby.  Defeat  of  Home  Rule  Bill. 
President  of  the  Cheltonian  Society.  Vosbergen. 
Mr.  Rhodes'  'History.'  ' Israel  among  the  Nations.' 
'The  Eye  of  the  Grey  Monk.'  Death  of  Sir  Andrew 
Clark.  Lecture  at  the  Imperial  Institute.  Pessi- 
mism.    French  Institute.     Memoir  of  Lord  Derby. 


Xiv  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Due    d'Aumale.     Resignation    of    Mr.    Gladstone.        page 
Lord  Rosebery  succeeds.      Madonna  di  Campiglio. 
Mr.    Froude's    death.      Tribute    to    Lord   RusseU. 
Canada  and  Copyright 283-302 


CHAPTER  XII 

1894-1896 

LL.D.  degree  at  Glasgow.  General  election.  Mr. 
Rhode's'  'History.'  Mr.  Bayard.  Offer  of  Dublin 
University  Seat.  Centenary  of  the  French  Institute. 
Contested  Election.  The  Religious  Cry.  Answer  to 
Correspondents.  Clonakilty  contra  mundum .  Result 
of  the  Election.  Congratulations.  Maiden  Speech, 
Land  Bill.  PubHcation  of  'Democracy  and  Lib- 
erty.' Appreciative  Letters.  Critics.  Essay  on 
Gibbon.  Essay  on  Swift.  Judge  O'Connor  Morris. 
Debates  on  the  Land  Bill 303-327 


CHAPTER  XIII 

1896-1898 

Mr.  Andrew  White's  'Warfare  of  Science  with  The- 
ology.' Travels  in  Austria  and  Hungary.  T.C.D. 
Historical  and  Philosophical  Societies.  'Cambridge 
Modern  History.'  The 'Map  of  Life.'  Introduction 
to  'Life  of  Lord  Stratford.'  The  Irish  University 
Question.  Report  of  Commission  on  Financial  Rela- 
tions. Over-taxation  of  Ireland.  Combined  Protest 
of  Unionists  and  Nationalists.  Sir  Horace  Plunkett. 
English  Agricultural  Rating  Act.  Ireland's  Griev- 
ance. Lord  Dufferin's  Views.  Sunday  Closing  Act. 
Diamond  Jubilee.  Privy  Councillorship.  Society 
in  Trinity  College.  Private  Papers  of  Wilber- 
force.  Ecclefechan.  Burke  Centenary.  Speech  on 
Burke 328-358 


CONTENTS  XV 

CHAPTER  XIV  PAGE 

1898-1900 

Irish  University  Question.  Irish  Local  Government  Bill. 
Centenary  of  the  Rebellion.  Introduction  to  Car- 
lyle's  'French  Revolution.'  'Mr.  Gregory's  Letter- 
box.' England  and  Germany.  England  and  the 
United  States.  Holland.  Cannes.  Dul:)lin.  Alex- 
andra College.  Introduction  to  the  revised  edition 
of  'Democracy  and  Liberty.'  Portrait  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. Distress  in  the  West  of  Ireland.  Old  Age 
Pensions  Committee.  Report.  Article  on  Old  Age 
Pensions  in  the  Forum.  Irish  Literary  Theatre. 
Scotland.  Holland.  Completion  of  the  'Map  of 
Life.'  South  African  War.  Moral  Aspects  of  the 
War.  Florence.  Financial  Relations.  Defence  of 
T.C.D.  Dean  Milman.  Queen  Victoria's  Visit  to 
Ireland.  Irish  Debates.  Holiday  in  Ireland.  Union- 
ist Dissatisfaction.  General  Election.  Spiddal.  Uni- 
versity Election 359-389 

CHAPTER  XV 

1900-1903 

College  Historical  Society.  Autumn  Session.  Death 
of  Queen  Victoria.  Her  Moral  Influence.  Last 
Revision  of  the  '  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion.'  Review 
Mr.  Childers'  Life.'  Compulsory  Purchase.  Seri- 
ous Illness.  Harrogate.  Vosbergen.  Royal  Com- 
mission on  Irish  University  Education.  British 
Academy.  Torquay.  Dublin.  Resignation  of  Seat 
in  Parliament.  Requisition  from  Trinity  College. 
Postponement  of  Resignation.  The  Coronation. 
The  Order  of  Merit.  Dinner  to  Lord  Roberts.  Last 
Speech.  Nauheim.  Autumn  Session.  Final  Resigna- 
tion of  Seat.  Publication  of  the  Revised  and  En- 
larged Edition  of  the  'Leaders  of  Public  Opinion.' 


XVI  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

On  Arbitration.  On  an  English-speaking  Alliance.  page 
Italian  Lakes.  Land  Bill  of  1903.  Fiscal  Ques- 
tion. Sir  Henry  Wrixon.  Crowborough.  Mount 
Browne.  Increasing  Ill-health.  The  End.  St. 
Patrick's  Cathedral.  Statue  in  Trinity  College. 
Tribute  from  Lord  Rathmore 390-420 


Index 421 


LIST    OF    PORTRAITS 
OF  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

PHOTOGRAVURE 

From  a  Photograph   by  Chancellor  &   Son, 

1888 Frontispiece 

From  a  Photograph  of  a  Group  of  Members 
op  the  Historical  Society,  Trinity  College, 
Dublin,  1860 To  face  p.  24 

From  A  Photograph  BY  Mayall,  1871   ....  "        92 

From  a  Photograph  by  Elliott  &  Fry    ...  "      202 

From  a  Photograph  by  Bassano,  1897  ....       "      330 


XVll 


MEMOIR 

OP 

WILLIAM   EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

CHAPTER  I 
1838-1861. 

Lecky's  parentage  —  Family  history  —  His  mother's  death  — 
His  father  marries  again  —  Graigavoran  —  Visit  to  Scotland 
—  School  life;  Lewes;  Monkstown  ;  Armagh;  Cheltenham 
College  —  His  father's  death  —  Quedgeley  —  Marriage  of  his 
stepmother  —  Bushy  Park  —  Enters  Trinity  College  Dub- 
lin —  Friendships  —  Di^dnity  course  —  Oratory  —  Histori- 
cal Society  —  Gold  Medal  —  Early  poems  —  Travels  — 
Publication  of  the  *  Religious  Tendencies  of  the  Age  '  — 
He  graduates  and  leaves  the  University — Switzerland  — 
Oberammergau  — •  Italy  —  Publication  of  '  Leaders  of  Public 
Opinion  in  Ireland.' 

The  parentage  of  remarkable  men  always  has  a  cer- 
tain interest,  whether  —  as  in  the  case  of  Goethe  — 
they  can  trace  all  their  characteristics  to  it,  or  whether 
the  transcendent  faculty  which  distinguishes  them 
appears  to  be  a  freak  of  nature  irrespective  of  heredity. 
There  are  instances  where  an  eminent  man  seems  to 
emerge  out  of  commonplace  surroundings,  while 
there  are  yet  distinctive  elements  in  his  more  remote 
ancestry  which  throw  some  light  on  his  personality 
and  are  worth  recording. 

William    Edward    Hartpole    Lecky    was    born    on 

March  26,  1838,  at  Newtown  Park,  co.  Dublin.     He 

was  the  son  of  Mr.  John  Hartpole  Lecky,  J. P.,  by 

his  first  marriage  with  Miss  Mary  Anne  Tallents,  of 

2  1 


2  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Newark.  The  Lecky  family  wore  of  Scottish  origin, 
and  there  is  evidence  of  their  having  been  in  Ireland 
from  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Tra- 
dition connects  them  with  the  Leckies  who  owned 
an  estate  on  the  Gargunnock  hills  in  Stirlingshire, 
and  says  that  the  laird  of  those  days  had  four  sons 
who  migrated  to  Ulster.  The  eldest,  Averil,  was  the 
ancestor  of  the  Londonderry  Leckys;  the  second, 
Thomas,  settled  in  Ballylin,  near  Rathmelton,  co. 
Donegal,  and  had  a  son,  Robert,  born  in  1649,  who 
in  the  course  of  time  removed  to  Carlow,  and  was 
the  ancestor  of  the  Carlow  branches.  Edward  Lecky 
was  lineally  descended  from  him.  The  Leckys  in 
the  North  of  Ireland  had  a  considerable  share  in  pub- 
lic affairs.  No  fewer  than  nine  members  of  the  fam- 
ily have  been  mayors  of  Derry.  Captain  Alexander 
Lecky,  who  was  High  Sheriff  in  1677,  took  a  promi- 
nent part  in  the  defence  of  Derry  during  the  famous 
siege  of  1688,  and  was  afterwards  Mayor.  Another 
member  represented  the  City  of  Derry  in  the  Irish 
Parliament  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. The  Carlow  Leckys  contented  themselves  with 
their  duties  as  landowners,  and  there  is  nothing 
special  to  record  of  them,  except  that  some  of  them 
in  former  generations  belonged  to  the  Society  of 
Friends  and  possessed  the  peaceful  and  benevolent 
qualities  which  characterise  that  body.  Edward 
Lecky's  grandfather  was  married  to  Maria  Hartpole, 
daughter  of  Robert  Hartpole,  of  Shrule  Castle,  and 
of  his  wife.  Lady  Harriet  Stratford.^     Miss  Hartpole 


1  She    was    a    daughter    of  early   English   history.     They 

John  Stratford,   first  Earl  of  migrated  to  Ireland  about  the 

Aldborough,   whose   ancestors  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 

played  a  considerable  part  in  tury. 


FAMILY   HISTORY  6 

and  her  sister  were  the  last  representatives  of  a  fam- 
ily who  once  played  a  great  part  in  Ireland.  The 
most  prominent  of  them  was  Robert  Hartpole,  lord 
of  the  manors  of  Shrule  and  Monksgrange,  who  was 
Constable  of  Carlow  Castle,  and  Governor  of  the 
Queen's  County  under  Queen  Elizabeth;  and  who, 
after  the  manner  of  the  time,  ruled  with  an  iron  hand 
over  a  refractory  population.  He  built  Shrule  Castle 
on  the  west  bank  of  the  river  Barrow,  two  and  a  half 
miles  north  of  the  town  of  Carlow;  and  it  was  a  pop- 
ular superstition  after  his  death  that  his  shade  haunted 
its  precincts.^  More  than  one  Hartpole  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Irish  Parliament.  The  last  male  represent- 
ative of  the  family  was  George  Hartpole,  Edward 
Lecky's  great-uncle,  whose  adventures  are  described, 
not  without  various  inaccuracies,  by  the  romancing 
pen  of  Jonah  Barrington.  He  died  leaving  his  two 
sisters  heiresses  of  the  family  property,  which  through 
extravagance  had  considerably  dwindled  away.  The 
eldest  married  Mr.  John  Lecky,  and  brought  in  her 
dowry  Shrule  Castle;^  the  second  married  Mr.  Charles 
Bowen, 

If  the  Hartpoles  were  a  turbulent  race,    Lecky's 
relatives  on  the  mother's  side  were  of  a  more  academic 


1  His  tombstone,  represent-  there  at  the  time  (Journal  of 
ing  his  recumbent  figure  in  the  Co.  Kildare  Arch.  Soci- 
armour,  with  a  Latin  inscrip-  ety,  January  number,  1904, 
tion,  and  the  date  1594,  orig-  Memorials  of  the  Dead,  vol.  iii, 
inally  in  St.  Mary's  Church,  No.  1,  which  gives  an  account 
Carlow,  found  after  many  of  the  Hartpole  family), 
vicissitudes  a  resting-place  ^  Jt  was  sold  and  is  now  a 
at  Kilnacourt,  Portarlington,  ruin.  The  date  1520  is  still 
through  the  exertions  of  his  traceable  over  the  great  fire- 
descendant,  Mr.  Charles  Hart-  place  of  what  was  once  the 
pole   Bowen,   who  was  living  stateroom. 


4  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

turn  of  mind.  Three  members  of  the  Tallents  fam- 
ily were  graduates  of  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge, 
in  the  seventeenth  century:  Francis  Tallents,  his 
brother,  and  his  son.  Francis  Tallents  and  his  brother 
were  Fellows,  and  the  former  was  also  President  of 
the  college  between  the  years  1642  and  1653.  He 
received  Presbyterian  Orders,  and  was  conspicuous  in 
troublous  times  for  his  large-minded  Christianity, 
his  courage  and  tolerance.  Baxter  describes  him  as 
a  'good  scholar,  a  godly,  blameless  divine,  most  emi- 
nent for  extraordinary  prudence  and  moderation,  and 
peaceableness  towards  all';  and  Matthew  Henry,  who 
preached  his  funeral  sermon  and  wrote  a  short  life 
of  him,  speaks  of  'his  politeness  being  a  great  orna- 
ment to  his  learning  and  piety '  —  the  inherited  good 
breeding  of  the  old  regime,  for  his  family  were  of 
French  origin.^  '  In  his  old  age  he  retained  the  learn- 
ing both  of  the  school  and  the  academy  to  admiration. 
He  had  something  to  communicate  to  those  who  con- 
versed with  him  concerning  all  sorts  of  learning;  but 
his  masterpiece,  in  which  no  man  was  more  ready,  was 
history.'  Though  in  his  writings  he  was  more  a  chron- 
icler of  events  and  dates  than  an  historian,  still  he 
combined  the  historical  sense  with  some  of  those 
identical  traits  of  character  which  a  few  centuries 
later  distinguished  his  kinsman. 

He  had  only  one  son,  who  died  without  leaving 
children,  and  Edward  Lecky,  and  the  present  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Tallents  family  are  descended  from 
his  brother  Godfrey.  The  family  were  from  early 
times  connected  with  Newark,  and  Edward  Lecky's 
grandfather,  Mr.  W.  E.  Tallents,  was  a  solicitor  there. 
He  was  a  man  of  high  character  and  great  abilities, 


1  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  vol.  Iv. 


HIS   PARENTS  5 

who  had  more  than  a  local  reputation.  In  1830-1832 
he  was  employed  by  the  Government  to  assist  in  the 
special  commission  of  assize  for  the  trial  of  prisoners 
concerned  in  the  machine-breaking  riots.'  He  was 
agent  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  at  Newark,  and  con- 
ducted Mr.  Gladstone's  first  election.  There  is  much 
contemporary  evidence  of  the  respect  in  which  he 
was  held  and  the  regret  felt  when  he  died  at  the  age 
of  fifty-seven.  In  a  letter  to  his  widow,  written  Jan- 
uary 24,  1838,  Mr.  Gladstone  dwells  on  the  loss  which 
he  had  himself  sustained  '  in  the  removal  of  a  friend  so 
kind,  so  high-minded,  of  such  distinguished  powers 
and  such  unwearied  assiduity';  and  when,  some  years 
afterwards,  Mr.  Gladstone  severed  his  connexion 
with  Newark  he  paid  a  fresh  tribute  to  his  memory 
in  writing  to  his  son,  Mr.  Godfrey  Tallents,  Edward 
Lecky's  uncle.^ 

Some  months  before  his  death,  in  1837,  his  daughter 
had  married  Mr.  John  Hartpole  Lecky,  who  was  at 
that  time  living  with  his  parents  at  Cullenswood 
House,  near  Dublin.  He  was  a  well-read,  high-prin- 
cipled, kind-hearted  gentleman,  who  seems  to  have 
had  a  great  many  friends.  He  had  been  called  to  the 
Bar,  but,  having  independent  means,  he  exercised  no 
profession.  He  was  a  magistrate  of  the  Queen's 
County,  where  he  had  property.     His  wife,  Edward 

'  The  Commission  was  held  the  highest  tone.     I  can  wish 

at       Winchester,       Salisbury,  you  nothing  more  in  regard  to 

Reading  and  Abingdon,  Dor-  the  observance  of  every  social 

Chester  and  Nottingham.  relation    than    that  you  may 

2  Mr.  Gladstone  wrote,  Jan-  continue  to  be  worthy  of  him, 

uary  14,  1846:  'From  the  son  and  with  his  honoured  name  to 

of  my  esteemed  friend,   your  hand  down  through  your  own 

father,  I  never  expected  any  generation  his  very  remarkable 

line  of  conduct  except  one  of  character.' 


6  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Lecky's  mother,  is  remembered  as  an  attractive  per- 
sonality with  intellectual  tastes  and  strong  religious 
principles.  They  lived  at  Maesgwyllydd  house,  New- 
town Park,  near  Dublin,  where  their  son  was  born. 
The  earliest  mention  we  find  of  him  is  in  a  letter  from 
his  mother  to  her  friend  Miss  Parker,  afterwards 
Lady  Cardwell,^  four  months  after  his  birth: 

'  I  have  under  this  roof  one  of  the  greatest  blessings 
that  can  be  bestowed  —  namely,  a  dear,  fine  little 
boy,  who  was  born  on  March  26,  and  I  am  thankful 
to  say  that  he  is  so  strong  that  I  have  never  had  an 
anxious  hour  on  his  account.  You  will  easily  believe 
he  is  already  a  great  pet.  I  am  afraid  I  shall  love  him 
too  much.' 

Mrs.  Lecky's  happiness  was  brief.  She  died  of  con- 
sumption at  Hastings,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  on 
March  31,  1839,  when  her  boy  was  little  more  than  a 
year  old.  Two  years  afterwards  his  father  married 
again  —  Miss  Wilmot,  daughter  of  Colonel  Wilmot, 
an  amiable,  accomplished  lady,  who  conscientiously 
tried  to  make  up  to  the  motherless  child  for  the  loss 
of  that  precious  possession,  a  mother's  love.  He  was 
in  fact,  never  told  that  she  was  not  his  mother  till 
shortly  before  he  went  to  Cheltenham  School,  and, 
though  he  put  down  the  date  in  a  notebook,  the  fact 
does  not  seem  to  have  impressed  him  much  at  the 
time.  When  he  was  about  four  years  old  his  father 
and  stepmother  went  to  Graigavoran,  a  place  in  the 
Queen's  County,  where  they  lived  from  1842  to  1844, 
and  where  their  son  George  Eardley  was  born,  who 
was  afterwards  in  the  78th  Highlanders. 


*  After      Lady      Cardwell's      his  mother,    which  had   been 
death  Lecky  received  a  bundle      carefully  treasured  by  her. 
of  letters,  written  to  her  by 


EARLY   Il\irRESSIONS  7 

They  went  about  a  good  deal  among  their  friends, 
taking  their  children  with  them,  and  Edward  Lecky 
remembered  a  visit  of  some  length  at  Lady  Maitland's, 
Lindores,  Perthshire,  which  impressed  him  on  account 
of  her  being  the  widow  of  Sir  Frederick  Maitland,  who 
had  conveyed  Napoleon  to  St.  Helena.  His  first 
experience  of  school  life  was  at  Dr.  Stanley's,  for  half 
a  year  at  Walmer  and  afterwards  at  Lewes,  where 
he  was  with  two  or  three  other  bo3''s,  when  he  was 
about  nine,  while  his  parents  stayed  at  Storrington, 
in  Sussex,  where  his  half-sister  was  born.  We  get 
a  description  of  him  in  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Stanley  to 
his  stepmother.  She  speaks  of  his  reserved  character, 
and  after  mentioning  some  small  faults  of  inattention 
and  indolence,  she  adds:  'But  these  are  minor  diffi- 
culties to  contend  with.  None  who  know  him  can 
doubt  his  gentle,  amiable  disposition  or  the  kindness 
of  his  heart,  and  on  the  one  great  point  of  all  he  cer- 
tainly shows  more  feeling  and  interest  than  is  usual 
for  so  young  a  child.'  At  the  same  time  he  already 
showed  a  very  independent  spirit.  Lewes  was  noto- 
rious for  its  Fifth  of  November  riots.  He  remembered 
sympathising  with  the  rioters,  and  his  master  telling 
him  that  his  feelings  were  in  defiance  of  law  and 
order.  He  had  a  great  liking  for  geology,  and  his 
favourite  pastime  was  seeking  specimens  for  a  collec- 
tion which  Mr.  John  Lecky,  his  grandfather,  had 
given  him. 

After  about  a  year  at  Dr.  Stanley's  he  returned  to 
Ireland  and  went  to  a  day  school  at  Kingstown,  his 
father  and  stepmother  having  now  settled  in  Long- 
ford Terrace,  Monkstown,  where  they  lived  for  many 
years.  The  O'Connell  agitation,  the  Irish  famine 
(which,  on  account  of  the  scarcity  of  bread,  was  felt 
in  every  household) ,  the  crowds  of  beggars,  the  Smith 


8  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

O'Brien  rebellion  —  all  made  a  deep  impression  on 
his  mind,  and  in  those  boyish  days  his  sympathies 
were  strongly  National  —  a  very  different  National- 
ism from  that  of  to-day.  He  used  often  to  go  to 
Woodbrook,  Portarlington,  where  his  father's  old 
friends  and  connexions,  the  Wilmot  Chctwodcs,  lived. 
Swift,  the  friend  of  the  Knightley  Chetwode  of  his 
day,  to  whom  much  of  his  correspondence  is  addressed, 
had  been  a  frequent  visitor  at  Woodbrook,  and  he 
is  said  to  have  planted  some  of  the  stately  beeches 
which  are  a  feature  of  the  place.  Amidst  such  sur- 
roundings and  traditions  Edward  Lecky  first  came 
under  the  spell  of  that  extraordinary  personality 
which  he  afterwards  described  in  his  '  Leaders  of 
Public  Opinion  in  Ireland.' 

A  survivor  of  those  days  ^  who  still  lives  at  Wood- 
brook remembers  him  as  a  fair,  quiet,  gentle  boy.  He 
used  to  ride  on  a  pony,  write  poetry  and  sermons, 
practise  preaching,  and  was  much  occupied  with 
religious  controversy,  being  assiduous  in  his  attend- 
ance at  the  Mariner's  Church  at  Kingstown,  where 
Mr.  Brooke  —  the  father  of  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke  — 
then  preached.  In  1850  he  was  taken  by  his  father 
and  stepmother  to  Switzerland  during  the  holidays, 
and  the  following  year  to  Bagneres,  which  he  visited 
many  times  in  after-life.  In  1851  he  was  for  half  a 
year  at  Armagh  School,  and  in  the  autumn  of-  1852 
he  went  to  Cheltenham  College.  He  had  not  been 
there  more  than  a  few  weeks  when  he  was  called  back 
to  Ireland  by  the  illness  of  his  father,  who  died  at 
the  early  age  of  forty-six.  This  event  cast  a  shadow 
over  his  youth.     He  returned  to  college,  which  he  at 


'  Miss  Alice  Wilmot  Chetwode.    She  and  her  brother  Knightley 
were  among  his  oldest  and  best  friends. 


AT  CHELTENHAM  AND  QUEDGELEY        9 

first  greatly  disliked,  being  in  a  large  establishment 
with  forty  boys ;  but  when  this  was  broken  up  and  he 
went  to  a  house  where  there  was  only  one  other  boy, 
and  where  he  had  a  room  to  himself,  he  found  it  much 
more  tolerable.  School  life,  however,  was  never  con- 
genial to  him.  Being  very  shy,  and  not  having  an 
overflow  of  health  and  spirits,  he  disliked  the  rough- 
ness of  the  outdoor  games  and  did  not  join  in  them. 
His  tastes  lay  in  quite  another  direction.  He  geol- 
ogised a  great  deal,  for  which  there  was  much  scope 
at  Cheltenham,  and  it  was  no  doubt  his  own  experi- 
ence which  made  him  write  in  his  'Commonplace 
Book'  some  years  after:  'It  is  pleasant  to  think  in  a 
geological  museum  that  the  discovery  of  every  stone 
you  see  gave  a  pleasure.'  He  probably  gave  a  stim- 
ulus to  the  study  of  geology  in  the  college,  for  a  little 
museum  there  dates  from  that  time.  In  his  leisure 
hours  he  also  indulged  in  writing  a  large  amount  of 
poetry.  He  had  no  ambition  for  school  honours,  and 
though  he  liked  some  of  the  lessons  he  did  not  much 
care  to  work  in  the  groove  that  was  set  before  him. 
From  early  days,  he  said,  he  made  it  a  point,  when  he 
possibly  could,  to  take  his  own  independent"  line,  and 
he  showed  great  persistence  in  all  he  did  —  an  invalu- 
able quality,  which  helped  him  to  conquer  obstacles, 
for  his  tastes  were  neither  understood  nor  encouraged 
at  home. 

On  leaving  Cheltenham  in  1855  he  went  to  a 
tutor,  the  Rev.  Erskine  Knollys,  at  Quedgeley,  near 
Gloucester,  to  prepare  for  his  entrance  examination  at 
Dublin  University.  In  a  date  book  with  jottings  of 
that  year  one  obtains  glimpses  of  his  varying  moods, 
his  fits  of  depression  sometimes  caused  by  ill-health, 
his  impatience  to  be  independent  of  school  and  home 
authorities,  though  he  hked  Mr.   Knollys  personally 


10  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

—  '26th  of  March,  my  birthday.  Oh!  that  it  was 
my  24th  or  25th.  It  opens  in  gloom,  but  "sorrow 
may  endure  for  a  night,  but  joy  comcth  in  the  morn- 
ing"'—  his  interest  in  pubHc  affairs,  his  love  of 
nature,  which  often  inspired  his  poetic  effusions,  and 
the  thread  of  rehgious  principle  and  sense  of  duty 
running  through  it  all.  He  records  the  events  of  the 
Crimean  war;  mentions  the  publication  of  volumes 
iii.  and  iv.  of  Macaulay's  '  History,'  speaks  of  frequent 
visits  to  Gloucester,  where  the  cathedral,  the  read- 
ing-room, and  the  bookshops  were  an  attraction;  and 
he  acquired,  among  other  books,  Burke's  'French 
Revolution,'  which  remained  one  of  his  favourites 
through  life.  He  also  used  to  read  to  some  infirm  old 
people.  Mr.  Knollys  had  no  worse  complaint  to 
make  of  him  than  that  he  was  'very  partial  to  work- 
ing in  a  desultory,  fitful  way,'  and  that  he  was  apt 
'to  adopt  one-sided  views  with  regard  to  the  events 
and  discussions  of  the  day.'  'He  had,  indeed,'  says 
a  Trinity  College  friend,^  speaking  of  a  somewhat  later 
period,  'an  inveterate  habit,  which  exposed  him  to  a 
great  deal  of  misunderstanding,  of  defending  in  con- 
versation whatever  position  happened  to  be  attacked.' 
More  than  thirty  years  after,  writing  to  Lecky's 
stepmother,  Mr.  Knollys  spoke  with  pride  of  his 
former  pupil. 

During  the  year  Edward  Lecky  was  at  Quedgeley 
his  stepmother  married  the  eighth  Earl  of  Carnwath, 
whose  first  wife  was  the  daughter  of  Grattan,  and  the 
family  lived  for  a  time  at  Bushy  Park,  Enniskerry,  a 
small  country  place  charmingly  situated  in  the  midst 
of  the  beautiful  scenery  of  the  County  Wicklow.     Its 


1  'Early  Recollections  of  Mr.  Lecky,  by  a  College  Friend,'  in 
the  National  Review,  March,  1904. 


ENTERS   TRINITY   COLLEGE  11 

proximity  to  Dublin  enabled  Edward  Lccky,  after  he 
had  entered  college,  to  spend  all  his  leisure  time  there, 
and  he  took  many  a  long  walk  in  the  Wicklow  moun- 
tains, which  always  had  a  peculiar  fascination  for 
him.  If  at  Woodbrook  he  had  imbibed  the  traditions 
of  Swift,  it  was  near  Grattan's  home,  'amid  the  Wick- 
low hills  and  by  the  Dargle  stream,  in  the  heart  of  one 
of  the  loveliest  valleys  in  Ireland,'  that  he  was  fired 
with  enthusiasm  for  that  other  leader  of  public  opinion 
'  the  greatest  of  Irish  orators.' 

In  1855  he  passed  his  examination,  obtaining  the 
tenth  place  out  of  forty  candidates,  and  on  February 
4  of  the  following  year  he  entered  college  as  a  Fellow 
Commoner,  and  occupied  rooms  at  No.  13  in  the  part 
nicknamed  Botany  Bay.  A  new  life  now  began  for 
him,  a  life  chiefly  of  independent  study,  in  which  he 
could  follow  his  bent.  There  were  at  college  with 
him  a  brilliant  group  of  young  men,  many  of  whom 
distinguished  themselves  in  after-life.  Among  his 
friends  were  Mr.  David  Plunket,  now  Lord  Rathmore; 
Mr.  Gibson,  now  Lord  Ashbourne;  Mr.  Fitzgibbon, 
now  Lord  Justice  Fitzgibbon;  Mr.,  now  Sir  Thomas, 
Snagge;  Mr.  Addison,  afterwards  a  County  Court 
Judge;  Mr.  Teignmouth  Shore,  now  Canon  of  Worcester; 
Mr.  Arthur  Booth;  ^  two  sons  of  Smith  O'Brien,  Edward 
and  Aubrey;  Mr.  Robert  Keith  Arbuthnot;  and  Mr. 
Freeman  Wills.^ 


1  The  author  of  Robert  Owen  became   acquainted    in    after- 

and  other  works.     He  is  the  years,  were  Sir  John  Ardagh, 

'College    Friend'    who    wrote  Professor    Dowden,    Sir   Den- 

*  Early    Recollections    of    Mr.  nis    Fitzpatrick,    Rev.    J.    P. 

Lecky'    in    the    National    Re-  Mahaffy,  Sir  Charles  Scott,  Dr. 

view  of  March  1904.  Traill,  Sir  Arthur  Wilson,  Sir 

=  Among    other    contempo-  Henry  Wrixon. 
raries,  with  some  of  whom  he 


12  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Some  of  these  still  remember  the  pleasant  evenings 
spent  with  Edward  Lecky,  '  in  his  bright  sitting-room 
lined  with  books,  arranged  two  deep/  when  'every- 
thing was  discussed  from  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Car- 
lyle  to  Kant,  Hegel,  and  Mommsen.'  Those  early 
friendships  remained  to  him  a  precious  possession 
through  life.  Mr.  Arthur  Booth  has  given  a  graphic 
account  of  his  recollections  of  tho.se  days.  He  and 
Edward  Lecky  had  been  some  time  at  college  before 
they  became  acquainted  by  a  pure  accident  which 
made  an  impression  on  both.  It  was  an  annual  cus- 
tom for  the  college  boys,  as  they  were  called,  to  march 
round  the  statue  of  King  William  in  College  Green  to 
commemorate  the  battle  of  the  Boyne.  This  usually 
led  to  some  harmless  friction  with  the  townspeople; 
but  when  a  similar  demonstration  took  place  on  the 
occasion  of  the  entry  of  Lord  Eglinton,  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant,  in  March,  1S58,  a  somewhat  serious  riot 
ensued.  The  boys  attacked  the  police.  The  chief 
of  the  police  — •  an  old  Peninsular  officer  —  lost  his 
head.  The  Riot  Act  was  hurriedly  read,  and  the 
police  charged  the  students  and  pursued  them  within 
the  college  railings.^  In  a  letter  to  his  friend,  Mr. 
Knightley  Chetwode,  who  had  left  college  some  time 
before,  Edward  Lecky  describes  the  fray,  which  he 
called  '  the  massacre  of  College  Green.' 

'  I  had  been  in  the  enclosure  where  the  affair  took 
place,  but  getting  tired,  about  half  an  hour  before  the 
charge,  I  went  into  the  reading-room,  and  was  at  its 
window  when  the  charge  was  made.  Saurin  B,  was 
in  it,  but  got  off  safely.  Edw.  O'Brien  was  also  there. 
He,  instead  of  joining  in  the  rush  to  the  college  door, 
went  into  the  open  space  to  one  side,  imagining  that 


I  am  indebted  for  some  of  these  particulars  to  Mr.  Booth. 


DIVINITY   COURSE  13 

he  would  not  be  molested.  The  police,  however,  came 
to  him  and  beat  him,  though  he  remonstrated  and 
did  not  (not  having  even  a  stick)  resist.  When  he 
got  out  he  was  a  little  dizzy,  and  came  up  with  me  to 
take  a  glass  of  wine,  and  got  quite  right  again  with 
the  exception  of  a  little  bruising.  I  suppose  you  see 
some  paper,  so  I  need  not  say  more  upon  it.  In  fact, 
my  personal  recollections  are  but  few,  as  I  was  so 
horrified  at  the  faces  streaming  with  blood  and  men 
half  insensible  that  I  was  rather  glad  to  turn  away. 
There  seems  but  one  opinion  here  —  that  the  provoca- 
tion in  no  respect  justified  the  charge.' 

It  was  while  looking  on  at  the  proceedings  that 
Edward  Lecky  and  Mr.  Booth  —  who  were  both 
very  shy  —  for  the  first  time  spoke  to  each  other,  and 
this  led  to  a  friendship  of  over  forty  years. 

Lecky  has  described  in  his  '  Formative  Influences ' 
the  currents  of  thought  that  prevailed  at  the  time 
he  entered  college.  The  agitation  caused  by  the 
Oxford  Movement  had  found  its  natural  channel  in 
secessions  to  Rome,  but  there  was  a  more  serious  per- 
turbation in  the  intellectual  atmosphere.  The  recent 
discoveries  in  geology  with  which  the  name  of  Sir 
Charles  Lyell  was  prominently  associated  had  thrown 
a  new  light  on  the  beginnings  of  the  earth  and  man, 
and  the  attempts  made  to  reconcile  the  deductions  of 
science  with  the  biblical  cosmogony  were  naturally 
keenly  watched.  Lecky  had  always  had  a  strong 
leaning  towards  theological  studies,  and  looked  for- 
ward to  a  peaceful  clerical  life  in  a  family  living  near 
Cork,  and  so,  in  addition  to  the  ordinary  university 
course,  he  went  through  that  appointed  for  divinity 
students.  Though  he  had  been  brought  up  in  the 
strict  Evangelical  principles  of  those  days,  he  ap- 
proached the  study  of  theology,  as  '  a  college  friend  ' 


14  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

says,  'with  a  far  broader  mind  than  was  generally  to 
be  found  among  his  fellow-students,  or  even  among 
the  professors,'  and  he  was  never  infected  with  the 
narrow  sectarian  spirit  which  had  been  the  bane  of 
Ireland.  This  was  due  partly  to  his  own  independ- 
ence of  mind  and  wide  general  reading,  and  partly 
to  his  having  spent  some  time  abroad.  He  confesses 
to  have  been  perhaps  culpably  indifferent  to  college 
ambitions  and  competitions,  and  he  threw  himself 
with  intense  eagerness  into  a  long  course  of  private 
reading,  chiefly  relating  to  the  formation  and  history 
of  opinions.  The  writings  of  Bishop  Butler  and  the 
personal  influence  of  Archbishop  Whately  had  a  large 
and  permanent  share  in  moulding  his  character  and 
strengthening  in  him  that  sense  of  duty  and  love  of 
truth  which  were  at  all  times  the  guiding  principles  of 
his  life.  Simultaneously  he  read  writers  of  such  differ- 
ent opinions  as  Pascal,  Bossuet,  Rousseau,  Voltaire, 
Bayle,  Coleridge,  Newman,  and  Emerson.  But  his  pri- 
vate reading  was  not  confined  to  the  history  of  opinions. 

*  His  main  enthusiasm  was  directed  to  the  literature 
and  politics  of  Ireland.  He  studied  the  speeches  of 
the  principal  orators  and  could  repeat  by  heart  many 
passages  from  them;  he  was  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  the  history  and  especially  with  the  "  wrongs  "  of 
the  country;  he  was  saturated  with  the  writings  and 
poetry  of  the  patriotic  party,  and  he  looked  upon  a 
junior  Fellow,^  who  was  the  author  of  "  Who  Fears  to 
Speak  of  '98,"  with  the  feelings  of  unbounded  amira- 
tion.  Patriotism  seemed  to  be  then  his  one  absorb- 
ing passion:  it  found  expression  in  his  earliest  poetry 
and  formed  the  subject  of  much  of  his  conversation.'  ^ 

»  The  Rev.  J.  Kells  Ingram.      the  National   Review,    March, 
2 'Early     Recollections     of      1904. 
Mr.  Lecky,  by  a  College  Friend/ 


PATRIOTISM   AND   ORATORY  15 

He  was,  however,  not  blind  to  the  faults  of  his 
countrymen:  'The  great  evils  of  Ireland,'  he  wrote 
in  1859,*  'are  mendicity  and  mendacity';  'The  great 
desideratum  in  Ireland  is  a  lay  pubUc  opinion';  and 
in  1862,^  '  Among  the  Irish  generally  there  is  a  want 
of  hard  intellectuality.' 

He  had  had  from  boyhood  a  passion  for  oratory, 
and  found  full  scope  for  it  in  the  Historical  Society, 
which  he  joined  two  years  after  he  had  entered  college, 
and  where,  in  1859  —  in  his  second  session  —  he  won 
the  Gold  Medal  which  was  awarded  annually.  'On 
one  evening  of  that  session,'  writes  Judge  Snagge,  'he 
rose  to  his  feet  in  the  debate  and,  to  the  amazement 
of  us  all,  poured  forth  a  stream  of  mellifluous  and 
finished  eloquence  that  carried  all  before  it.  It  was 
meteoric.  It  was  not  a  speech,  it  was  a  recited  essay, 
but  it  raised  the  standard  of  debating  rhetoric  enor- 
mously.'^ 

In  paying  a  tribute  to  Lecky's  memory  at  the  first 
meeting  of  the  Society  after  his  death  the  President 
(Lord  Ashbourne)  gave  his  own  recollections.  He  said 
he  heard  him  make  his  first  speech  in  that  society, 
over  forty  years  ago,  in  the  year  1858,  and  he  remem- 
bered the  surprise  with  which  they  all  saw  him  rise 
and  come  forward.  '  He  spoke  very  much  as  he  spoke 
all  through  his  life,  with  an  extraordinary  wealth  of 
language,  with  the  most  marvellous  affluence  of  illus- 
tration, with  the  most  singular  gift  he  [the  President] 
ever  knew  of  giving  the  most  appropriate  designations 
to  every  person  and  subject,  no  matter  how  numerous, 
that  he  desired  to  describe.'  Lord  Ashbourne  believed 
that  the  great  success  which  Lecky  achieved  among 


I  Commonplace  Book.  ^  Ibid. 

^  The  Academy  and  Literature,  October  31,  1903. 


16  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

his  contemporaries  by  being  awarded  the  Gold  Medal 
for  oratory  had  a  considerable  effect  on  his  character 
and  future.  It  no  doubt  stimulated  him  and  gave  to 
his  shy  nature  the  self-confidence  which  he  needed. 
The  'College  Friend'  says: 

'His  speeches  were  always  carefully  prepared  dur- 
ing long  walks  on  the  West  Pier  at  Kingstown,  though 
they  were  not  committed  to  memory.  A  few  notes  on 
a  slip  of  paper  about  two  inches  long  and  about  one 
wide,  crumpled  up  in  the  waistcoat  pocket,  were  all  he 
carried  to  remind  him  of  the  points  in  the  subject.  The 
language  was  always  admirable,  rising  at  times  to  a 
high  pitch  of  eloquence,  perhaps  occasionally  a  Uttle 
too  ornate,  but  producing  a  distinct  thrill  through  the 
audience.  It  was  said  sometimes  that  the  matter  was 
more  emotional  than  argumentative,  but  those  who 
had  to  reply  found  the  task  by  no  means  an  easy 
one.  .  .  . 

'There  can  be  Httle  doubt  that  for  a  long  time  his 
chief  ambition  was  to  become  a  great  orator.  His 
library  was  full  of  the  speeches  of  the  Irish  orators.  He 
rushed  off  every  Sunday  morning  after  chapel  to  hear 
Dr.  John  Gregg  (aferwards  Bishop  of  Cork),  who  was 
then  considered  the  greatest  pulpit  orator  in  Dublin. 
Whenever  Whiteside,  who  had  a  similar  reputation  at 
the  Bar,  was  to  be  heard,  Lecky  might  usually  be 
seen  an  admiring  listener.  He  frequently  practised 
extempore  speaking  to  himself  in  his  own  rooms,  and 
no  honour  he  received  was  so  highly  prized  as  the 
Gold  Medal  of  the  Historical  Society.' 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Knightley  Chetwode,  Edward 
Lecky  gives  the  following  humorous  description  of 
Whiteside's  oratory: 

*  13  T.C.D.:  Saturday  night  [postmark  May  1,  1859]. 
—  Our  nomination  went  off  very  quietly  to-day,  and 


THE   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY  17 

Whiteside  talked  splendid  nonsense.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  imposing  speeches  I  ever  heard.  He  spurned 
grammar,  trampled  on  logic,  and  contemned  consist- 
ency, but  did  it  most  magnificently.  The  manner  in 
which  he  intoned  some  of  his  sarcasms  was  perfect. 
He  is  indeed  a  most  superb  humbug,  and  I  have  an 
immense  admiration  for  him.  ...  I  passed  my  degree 
examination  on  Wednesday  and  Thursday  successfully, 
which  is  a  great  consolation.' 

He  wrote  to  the  same  friend,  June  16,  1859: 

'  Yesterday  we  had  the  closing  night  at  the  His- 
torical, which  was  rather  a  formidable  thing  for  me, 
as  I  had  to  open  and  reply.  The  subject  was  Journal- 
ism —  that  its  growth  is  beneficial  to  society.  We 
had,  I  beheve,  about  three  or  four  hundred  people 
tlierey  Napier,  of  course,  in  the  chair.  I  found  that 
I  was  not  the  least  nervous  and  hked  it  all  very  well. 
The  subject,  however,  not  being  in  my  line,  I  did  not 
make  one  of  my  best  speeches.  Also,  not  having 
the  fear  of  conservatism  and  the  clergy  before  my 
eyes,  I  had  the  audacity  to  review  (in  its  relation  to 
political  and  sectarian  public  opinion)  the  struggles 
for  nationality  in  Ireland  and  to  launch  a  diatribe  at 
the  political  clergy.  .  .  .  This  evening  the  Committee 
have  made  up  the  Oratory  marks  and  I  have  got  the 
Gold  Medal,  which  is,  I  confess,  very  gratifying  to 
me.  .  .  .  My  marking,  they  seem  to  think,  is  the 
highest  which  has  been  in  the  Society  for  some  years. 
It  is  a  fraction  above  what  Plunket  got  last  year,  but 
perhaps  they  have  got  into  a  way  of  marking  higher 
than  they  did  then.  Gibson  tells  me  that  one  of  the 
speeches  I  withdrew  was  marked  very  high,  so  per- 
haps it  would  have  been  better  if  I  had  kept  that  in 
and  had  withdrawn  my  speech  of  last  night.' 

He  then  speaks  of  his  first  literary  venture  —  a 
volume  of  poems  which  he  had  published  when  he 
came  of  age. 


18  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

'  My  small  volume  came  out  last  Easter  under  the 
name  of  "  Hibernicus."  My  publishers  tell  me  that 
the  reviews  are  often  from  three  to  four  months  after 
the  publication,  so  it  is  scarcely  time  to  expect  any 
notices;  hitherto  I  have  only  seen  two,  both  very  short, 
one  praising  and  one  condemning.  I  feel  perfectly 
philosophical  about  it,  and  console  myself  by  reflecting 
that  those  things  are  always  I  beheve,  ultimately  ap- 
plied to  useful  purposes  by  the  small  grocer  trade,  &c. 
It  was  a  very  pleasant  amusement  to  me,  and  that  was 
the  chief  thing.  .  .  .^ 

'This  day  week  I  have  to  attend  an  "Historical 
dinner"  at  Salt  Hill  Hotel,  and  to  deliver  sundry 
post-prandial  orations,  to  which  I  look  forward  with 
no  pleasure.  After  that  I  hope  to  go  away  for  a 
week  or  ten  days  —  where  I  do  not  know.  I  was 
thinking  of  either  the  Wicklow  scenery  or  the  Bally- 
mena  Conventions.  About  the  2nd  or  3rd  July  I 
hope  to  take  my  degree,  and  then  I  mean  to  go  to 
Switzerland.' 

The  Bushy  Park  home  had  been  broken  up  some 
years  before,  his  relations  having  gone  abroad,  and 
Edward  Lecky  had  either  spent  his  hoUdays  with 
them  at  Brussels,  Cannstadt,  and  Heidelberg  (where 


1  Once  before  Edward  Lecky  had  appeared  in  print  —  in  the 
College  Magazine  of  December  1857,  which  contained  a  short 
poem  called  'The  Cloud.' 

'  How  silently  yon  milk-white  cloud 

Is  gliding  overhead, 
As  though  above  life's  busy  crowd 

It  bore  the  silent  dead. 

And  now  its  snowy  wings  expand. 

And  now  again  they're  furled, 
As  though  that  happy  spirit  band 

Just  saw  and  fled  the  world.' 


DR.   JOHN   GREGG  19 

they  lived  for  a  time),  or  travelled  on  his  own  account. 
The  letters  he  wrote  in  those  years  to  his  friend  Mr. 
Knightley  Chetwode  give  some  idea  of  his  move- 
ments. During  a  journey  to  the  Lakes  in  September 
1858  he  met  Dr.  John  Gregg  at  Windermere,  the  per- 
son in  Ireland  whom,  after  Smith  O'Brien,  he  most 
wished  to  know.     He  found  him 

'  exceedingly  pleasant  and  at  the  same  time  very  odd. 
We  talked  a  great  deal  about  oratory,  and  it  was 
quite  amusing  to  see  how  enthusiastically  fond  of  it 
he  is  and  how  intensely  he  admires  it.  He  seems 
quite  up  in  almost  all  English,  Irish,  and  Latin  orators, 
and  as  I  knew  them  pretty  well  also  we  got  on  fa- 
mously. He  has  also  managed  to  hear  most  of  the  great 
preachers  in  the  kingdom.  He  himself  is  more  sus- 
ceptible of  atmospheric  influences  than,  I  think,  any- 
one I  know.  He  was  perfectly  wretched  about  the 
weather.  He  says  in  such  weather  he  can't  get  up 
his  spirits  or  preach  or  do  anything  well.  He  was 
full  of  odd  pithy  remarks,  and  so  very  free  from  cant, 
though  a  clergyman  —  such  an  intense  admirer  of  man 
and  of  mind.  Thus  he  was  talking  of  some  kinds  of 
scenery  which  is  seen  best  alone,  and  the  reason  he 
gave  was  "  that  mind  is  so  far  superior  to  matter  that  if 
your  companion  has  any  of  it,  the  matter  is  liable  to 
be  lost  in  the  mind." ' 

They  agreed,  too,  about  the  wrongs  of  Ireland: 

.  .  .  'Mr.  G.  seemed  greatly  to  admire  O'Connell's 
genius,  appearance,  and  oratory,  and  to  think  that  his 
agitation  was  not  far  at  one  time  from  succeeding. 
He  also  thinks  that  if  there  were  but  one  religion  in 
Ireland,  no  matter  which  it  were,  repeal  would  prob- 
ably have  passed.  He  believes,  however,  that  it 
would  probably  eventuate  in  the  dismemberment  of 
the  Empire,  and  that  the  R.  C.  party  are  not  to  be 
trusted.' 


20  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

His  love  of  travelling  at  that  time  was  insatiable, 
and  his  journeys  had  a  considerable  share  in  his  devel- 
opment and  often  served  a  purpose  he  had  in  view. 
While  writing  his  first  prose  book,  'The  Rehgious 
Tendencies  of  the  Age,'  he  says  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  K. 
Chetwode,  dated  from  Trinity  College  Dublin,  Novem- 
ber 1859,  that  he  had  been  travelling  through  Switzer- 
land, the  ItaUan  lakes,  Milan,  Venice,  Solferino, 
Padua,  Verona,  Trieste,  the  Caverns  of  Adelsberg, 
Vienna,  Dresden,  Prague,  Cologne,  Holland,  and 
part  of  Belgium.  He  had  been  reading  a  very  great 
quantity  of  French  Uterature  during  the  journey, 
studying  pictures,  improving  his  French,  and  practis- 
ing EngUsh  composition.  '  I  have  seen  several  very 
interesting  people  of  different  nations,'  he  wrote,  'and 
have  enjoyed  myself  very  much.  Not  to  speak  of 
secular  matters  ...  I  have  been  taking  a  good  deal 
to  French  Roman  Catholicism  and  to  the  Greek  and 
Russian  churches  with  their  dissenters.'  Italy,  where 
he  had  now  been  for  the  first  time,  appeared  to  him  as 
'the  type  of  genius  among  the  nations,'  ^  and  the 
pictures  of  Madonnas  and  saints  must  have  inspired 
the  comparison.  'Some  people  are  mere  aspiring 
intellects,  hke  the  pictures  of  cherubims  by  the  old 
masters,  heads  and  wings  and  nothing  more.'  ^ 

'We  had  the  Historical  opening  night  last  Wednes- 
day,' he  continues  in  the  letter  already  quoted,  '  and 
one  of  the  grandest  addresses  I  ever  heard  from  Plun- 
ket.  He  delivered  it,  instead  of  reading  it,  and  his 
delivery  is,  I  think,  finer  than  that  of  any  speaker  I 
know;  I  should  be  inclined  to  put  him  pretty  much  at 


>  Commonplace  Book,  1859.        painters  should  have  neglected 
^  Ibid.     'How  curious  it  is,'      the  hand,  almost  the  best  in- 
he   observes,  'that  nearly  all      dex  of  the  mind.' 


DIVINITY   EXAMINATION  21 

the  head  of  the  hving  speakers  of  Ireland.  Dudley, 
another  of  our  Historical  men,  has  got  Mr.  Maturin's 
curacy;  I  heard  him  preach  last  Sunday.  A  son  of 
Fitzgibbon,  the  lawyer,  is,  I  believe,  to  be  the  star 
this  year.  Napier  has  given  a  gold  medal  for  com- 
position, which  has  been  gained  by  Gibson,  whose 
essay  he  praised  to  the  skies.  Gibson  is  publishing 
it  with  his  name  and  moderator  distinctions.  I  am, 
as  usual,  going  on  with  Divinity,  writing,  reading,  and 
studying  oratory.  .  ,  .' 

'  13  Trinity  College,  Tuesday  [February  I860].  —  I 
returned  from  the  North  of  Ireland  about  three  or 
four  weeks  ago,  and  have  since  been  reading  almost 
incessantly  (as  I  was  in  the  North),  for  besides  my 
Divinity  examination,  which  is  very  formidable,  I 
have  been  reading  multitudes  of  books  in  some  other 
departments  which  I  had  previously  studied  little  or 
not  at  all.  My  Divinity  examination  is  towards  the 
end  of  March,  but  I  do  not  mean  to  give  up  my  rooms 
for  some  time  after,  as  I  have  still  much  to  read  in  the 
library.' 

On  March  29  he  refuses  an  invitation  from  the  same 
friend  to  stay  at  Woodbrook  because 

'I  am  just  now  perfectly  overwhelmed  with  litera- 
ture. I  can  only  keep  my  rooms  for  a  very  limited 
time.  I  have  more  to  read  than  I  can  well  compress 
into  that  time,  and  do  not  think  I  can  just  at  present 
leave  college  at  all  except  perhaps  for  a  few  days  in 
the  CO.  Wicklow,  where  I  can  read,  &c.,  incessantly. 
As  you  saw,  I  passed  my  exam,  successfully  —  only 
nine  candidates  were  in,  and  three  were  stopped.  I 
made  a  speech  the  night  before  the  exam.,  which  was 
perhaps  rather  an  audacious  proceeding.  I  want 
you  very  much  to  go  with  me  to  Belgium,  Switzer- 
land, and  Italy.  If  you  prefer  any  other  countries, 
I  shall  be  very  happy  to  go  to  them  (provided  there 
are  no  long  sea  voyages).     I  was  thinking  of  going  in 


22  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

the  early  part  of  June,  but  can  easily  put  it  off  if  it 
suits  you.  ...  I  know  you  will  never  go  abroad  by 
yourself,  and  for  my  part  my  enjoyment  would  be 
greatly  enhanced  if  you  were  to  go.' 

'The  Religious  Tendencies  of  the  Age'  came  out 
anonymously  about  this  time. 

'  Since  you  say,  much  to  my  astonishment,'  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  K.  Chetwode  in  June  1860,  'that  you  are 
curious  about  my  book,  I  send  it  you.  It  is  an  attempt 
to  analyse  and  develop  certain  modes  of  thought 
pervading  our  present  theological  literature.  Heaven 
only  knows  whether  it  will  arrive  at  Woodbrook.  To 
write  a  book  requires  some  energy,  but  to  pack  it 
for  the  book  post  quite  transcends  my  capacities.  .  .  . 
I  mean  to  go  to  Salt  Hill  next  Wednesday  and  to 
remain  at  all  events  till  after  the  ensuing  Wednesday, 
when  the  Historical  closes.' 

'The  Rehgious  Tendencies  of  the  Age,'  which  has 
been  long  out  of  print,  included  chapters  on  Private 
Judgment,  the  Church  of  Rome,  High  Churchism, 
Latitudinarianism,  Practical  Christianity,  and  the 
Signs  of  the  Times.  The  book  already  showed  that 
remarkable  detachment,  that  power  of  throwing  him- 
self into  various  modes  of  thought,  which  enabled 
him  always  to  see  the  merits  of  each  point  of  view. 
He  describes  with  an  equally  sympathetic  insight  the 
place  the  Virgin  Mary  holds  in  the  loftiest  conceptions 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  worship  and  the  ideal  mission 
of  the  Protestant  clergyman;  and  the  object  with  which 
the  book  was  written  was  to  promote  the  spirit  of 
charity  and  tolerance.  It  was  in  that  respect  a  fit  pre- 
cursor of  'The  History  of  Rationahsm.' 

'  Do  not  imagine,'  he  says  in  the  first  chapter  on 
Private  Judgment,  'that  you  can  understand  a  reUg- 


'the  religious  tendencies'  23 

ious  system  because  you  have  mastered  its  history 
and  can  explain  its  doctrines.  Your  mind  should  be 
so  imbued  with  its  spirit  that  you  can  realise  the  feel- 
ings of  those  who  beUeve  in  it;  you  should  endeavour 
to  throw  yourself  into  their  position,  to  ascertain 
what  doctrines  they  chiefly  dwell  upon,  what  points 
fascinate  the  most,  what  present  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty to  their  minds.  You  should  try  to  divest  your- 
self for  a  time  of  your  previous  notions  and  to  assume 
the  feelings  of  others.  You  should  read,  not  merely 
their  standard  theological  works,  but  also  their  ordi- 
nary devotional  manuals;  you  should  haunt  the  vil- 
lage chapel  and  the  village  procession  and  endeavour 
in  every  way  to  enter  into  the  feelings  of  the  wor- 
shipper.' 

It  was  no  wonder  that  some  of  his  readers  were 
puzzled.  Writing  afterwards  to  Mr.  A.  Booth  from 
Rome  he  says: 

*  I  had  given  him  [Arbuthnot  ^]  a  copy  of  my  book, 
w^hich  he  has  been  showing  to  his  friends,  apparently 
to  their  great  bewilderment  and  astonishment.  He 
is  very  complimentary  to  my  style,  which  he  calls  "  a 
splendid  mixture  of  Newman  and  Macaulay,"  but  a 
good  deal  shocked  with  some  of  my  views.  One  "  very 
choice  friend "  is  so  immensely  impressed  with  them 
that  he  is  engaged  in  a  refutation  of  my  chapter  on 
Romanism;  while  another  at  first  thought  I  was  a 
Jesuit;  as  he  read  on  he  became  more  puzzled,  and  at 
last  determined  I  had  no  certain  religious  belief.  The 
Downshire  Protestant  pronounced  it  "  one  of  the  most 
provoking  books  we  have  ever  read,"  and  remarked  that 
it  contained  "able,"  "eloquent,"  "thoughtful,"  "in- 
structive," "pithy,"  and  "forcible"  arguments  against 
Infallibility  and  much  nonsense  in  favour  of  Popery.' 


>  The  Rev.  R.  K.  Arbuthnot,  afterwards  Rector  of  Stratford, 
Essex. 


24  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Edward  Lecky  was  twenty-two  when  he  pubHshed 
this  book,  and  he  left  college  soon  after,  having  taken 
his  B.A.  degree  the  previous  year.  His  future  was 
unsettled,  for  he  was  then  gradually  coming  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  was  not  suited  to  a  clerical  life; 
and  as  there  was  nothing  to  keep  him  in  Ireland, 
he  went  to  the  Continent  and  led  for  some  years  a 
nomadic  existence,  returning  at  intervals.  While 
writing  the  '  Religious  Tendencies '  he  had  been  collect- 
ing materials  for  the  '  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion,' 
which  he  was  writing  when  he  started  on  his  travels. 

During  the  years  that  follow  he  kept  up  an  assidu- 
ous correspondence  with  Mr.  Arthur  Booth;  and  as 
this  is  the  chief  material  for  that  period  of  his  life 
some  extracts  from  the  letters  will  be  given,  which 
will  enable  one  to  follow  him  both  in  his  travels  and 
in  his  intellectual  progress.  He  began  by  going  to 
France,  seeing  pictures  and  cathedrals,  and  then  pro- 
ceeded to  Switzerland.  His  mind  was  still  very  full 
of  the  subject  of  theology,  and  in  a  letter  dated  Au- 
gust 10,  from  the  top  of  the  Rigi,  he  says: 

'The  evidences  of  Christianity  are  irresistible.  .  .  . 
I  believe  that  it  is  a  man's  duty  to  prove  his  creed 
...  to  seek  for  truth  reverently,  humbly,  sincerely 
praying  for  the  guidance  of  the  enhghtening  Spirit 
and  seeking  by  good  works  the  fulfilment  of  the  prom- 
ise, "  He  that  doeth  the  will  of  My  Father  shall  know 
the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God."  I  believe  that 
he  who  does  so  may  commit  himself  fearlessly  into  the 
Almighty's  hands,  having  done  his  part,  and  I  believe 
that  this  is  the  behef  generally  held  by  Christian  men.' 

At  Lucerne  he  found  his  college  friend  Mr.  Snagge, 
who  has  described  the  meeting,^  and  they  afterwards 


» In  the  Academy  and  Literature,  October  31,  1903. 


WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

FVom  a  Photograph  of  a  Group  of  Members  of  the  Historical  Society, 

Trinity  College,  DvbUiu  1800 


TRAVELS   IN   ITALY  25 

saw  together  the  Oberammergau  Passion  play,  which 
so  impressed  him  by  its  beauty,  solemnity,  and  the 
reverential  spirit  in  which  it  was  acted  that  eleven 
years  afterward,  when  it  was  given  again,  he  returned 
there  with  his  wife.  The  strong  religious  element 
in  Bavaria  and  the  Tyrol  —  the  roads  '  fringed  with 
crucifixes  and  with  so  many  saints  with  the  conven- 
tional saint  look'  —  was  somewhat  oppressive  to 
him.  '  It  is  almost  a  relief  to  get  into  a  more  secular 
country,  and  almost  consoling  to  reflect  that  as  I 
approach  the  Pope  the  reUgious  element  will  prob- 
ably wane  still  more.'  He  was  all  his  life  a  great  lover 
of  art,  especially  of  painting,  and  he  now  studied  each 
painter  in  the  various  Italian  towns  where  his  pictures 
could  be  seen  to  most  advantage.  The  relation  of 
Italian  art  to  the  reUgious  life  of  the  people  was  after- 
wards treated  by  him  in  one  of  the  chapters  of  the 
'History  of  Rationalism.'  He  was  also  enthusiastic 
about  good  acting,  and  wrote  from  Florence,  Novem- 
ber 18,  1860: 

'  At  Milan  I  came  in  for  Ristori,  who  is  now,  I  sup- 
pose, at  Paris,  and  whom  I  admire  most  intensely. 
She  is  not,  I  think,  at  all  pathetic;  but  for  power,  for 
passion,  for  transition  from  one  feeling  to  another, 
and  for  representing  the  simultaneous  working  of 
opposite  passions,  I  never  saw  anyone  approaching 
her.  I  only  saw  her  twice  —  not  enough  to  drink 
in  the  full  spirit  of  her  powers  —  but  she  has  been 
haunting  me  ever  since.  There  is  scarcely  anything 
that  I  admire  so  much  as  a  really  great  actor,  scarcely 
anything  I  should  so  like  to  be.' 

He  was  enchanted  with  Florence,  and  went  on  to 
Rome,  stopping  on  the  way  a  few  days  at  Perugia, 
where  he  was  struck  with  the  number  of  churches  and 


26  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

convents:  'Only  think  of  the  result  of  it  all  being  that 
the  people  poured  boiUng  water  out  of  the  windows 
on  the  Pope's  soldiers.'  Rome  at  that  time  had  still 
all  the  picturesque  features  of  ecclesiastical  costume 
and  ceremonial,  which  disappeared  to  a  great  extent 
with  the  temporal  power,  and  which  those  who,  Uke 
Lecky,  revisited  it  subsequently  could  not  help  re- 
gretting. 

He  remained  some  time  in  Rome,  making  himself 
familiar  with  the  various  periods  of  art  —  chiefly 
early  Christian  and  Renaissance  —  and  reading  and 
writing  at  the  same  time.  '  I  owe  a  good  many  of  my 
ideas  to  Michelet,'  he  wrote.  *  Quinet,  whom  Miche- 
elet  puffs,  is,  I  think,  a  humbug,  and  Guizot  is  very 
dull.  Lamartine  is  sometimes  beautiful  (he  draws 
characters  better  than  perhaps  any  living  writer), 
but  egotistical  and  over-sentimental.  Victor  Hugo 
is,  I  think,  the  greatest  poet  and  dramatist  living.' 
'At  present  my  writing  gets  on  very  slowly,  but  still 
gets  on.'  He  was  not,  however,  very  pleased  with  the 
result  of  his  first  book,  for,  in  answer  to  a  suggestion 
that  he  should  follow  a  literary  career,  he  rephed  from 
Rome,  January  26,  1861,  that  there  was  a  trifling 
obstacle  to  his  adopting  it,  as  he  had  not  the  faculty 
of  getting  any  readers. 

While  he  was  in  Rome  news  came  of  the  fall  of 
Gaeta.     He  writes  from  Naples,  March  11,  1861: 

'The  Pope  went  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  ex-King  to 
express  his  deep  sorrow  at  the  event.  The  people 
assembled  in  an  immense  crowd  in  the  Corso  (which 
they  partially  illuminated)  to  express  their  joy,  and 
I  prepared  to  go  at  once  to  the  said  fortress.  I  was 
there  just  a  week,  or  a  week  and  a  day,  after  the  sur- 
render. Most  of  the  houses  have  great  holes  about 
four  feet  square,  made  by  the  shells,  and  the  whole 


TRAVELS    IN    ITALY  27 

of  a  bare  hill  is  literally  ploughed  up  with  them.  It 
is  scarcely  possible  to  walk  a  second  without  coming 
on  a  piece  of  one,  many  having  buried  themselves  deep 
in  the  ground,  which  they  have  torn  up  all  round  them. 
Others  have  shattered  the  rocks,  others  have  made 
great  ragged  holes  in  the  fortifications.  Quantities 
of  shells  are  still  lying  about  unexploded.  I  was 
walking  in  a  very  lonely,  out-of-the-way  part  of  the 
fortress  when  I  was  startled  by  an  explosion,  and, 
looking  round,  saw  a  tall,  thick  column  of  smoke 
rising  within  a  few  yards  of  me.  I  found  that  a  group 
of  httle  boys  had  been  suspiciously  hammering  at 
one  of  these  shells,  which  had,  of  course,  gone  off. 
They  came  rushing  away,  screaming  with  terror  and 
perfectly  black  with  smoke,  the  faces  of  one  or  two 
badly  burnt,  those  of  one  or  two  others  bleeding,  the 
clothes  of  one  or  two  smoking  and  reduced  to  a  black 
powder.  I  helped  them  to  pull  off  said  clothes,  and 
they  then  ran  as  quickly  as  they  could  to  the  town.' 

He  watched  with  keen  interest  the  struggle  for  free- 
dom and  unity  in  Italy,  and  his  feelings  are  best 
described  in  a  passage  he  wrote  more  than  thirty  years 
after: 

'  It  was  one  of  the  most  genuine  of  national  move- 
ments, and  very  few  who  were  young  men  when  it 
took  place,  still  fewer  of  those  who,  like  the  writer 
of  these  lines,  then  lived  much  in  Italy,  can  have  failed 
to  catch  the  enthusiasm  which  it  inspired.  .  .  .  The 
mingled  associations  of  a  glorious  past  and  of  a  noble 
present,  the  genuine  and  disinterested  enthusiasm 
that  so  visibly  pervaded  the  great  mass  of  the  Itahan 
people,  the  genius  of  Cavour,  the  romantic  character 
and  career  of  Garibaldi,  and  the  inexpressible  charm 
and  loveliness  of  the  land  which  was  now  rising  into 
the  dignity  of  nationhood,  all  contributed  to  make 
the  Italian  movement  unlike  any  other  of  our  time. 
It  was  the  one  moment  of  nineteenth-century  history 


28  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

when  politics  assumed  something  of  the  character  of 

poetry.'  ^ 

He  returned  to  Ireland  about  May  1861,  and  stayed 
for  some  time  with  his  relations  at  5  Belgrave  Square, 
Monkstown,  where  they  were  at  that  time  living.  He 
writes  to  Mr.  (the  late  Judge)  Addison :  '  I  had  an 
admirable  passage,  was  enchanted  with  the  new 
boats,  and  so  triumphantly  well  that  I  could  even  read 
a  little  Theodore  Parker  on  board.'  He  was  then 
much  engrossed  in  Buckle,  of  which  the  second  vol- 
ume had  just  come  out,  and  he  says  in  a  subsequent 
letter  to  the  same  correspondent: 

'  I  wish  you  would  read  Buckle's  "  History  of  Civil- 
isation"; it  is,  I  think,  one  of  the  most  interesting 
books  and  the  very  best  history  I  have  ever  read.  I 
have  gone  over  nearly  all  of  it  several  times,  and  each 
time  with  increasing  admiration  and  amazement.  I 
am  convinced  he  will  one  day  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  greatest  men  England  has  ever  produced.  The 
second  volume  is,  I  think,  even  better  than  the  first. 
.  .  .  For  myself  I  was  greatly  flattered  by  finding 
that  Mr.  B.  has  adopted  some  rather  uncommon  views 
that  I  had  myself  independently  worked  out.' 

Though  he  always  retained  his  early  admiration 
for  Buckle,  his  opinions  about  Buckle's  theories  were 
greatly  modified  afterwards.  He  had  at  this  time 
also  been  diligently  reading  the  Fathers  with  that 
unbiassed  mind  which  he  brought  to  bear  on  all  sub- 
jects, and  he  found  them  sometimes  more  curious  than 
edifying. 

1 'The    glamour    has    now  dubious  elements  that  mingled 

faded,'  he  added,   'and  look-  with  it'   (Democracy  and  Lib- 

ing   back   upon    the   past   we  crty,    cabinet    edition,    i.    pp. 

can    more    calmly    judge    the  490  sqq.). 


'  LEADERS    OF   PUBLIC   OPINION  '  29 

To  Mr.  Arthur  Booth  he  wrote  that  he  '  was  deep 
in  UtiUtariaii  philosoph}',  Jeremy  Benthani,  Helve- 
tius,  &c.,  with  a  parallel  course  of  Irish  biographies, 
Dr.  Doyle,  Lady  Morgan,  and  Dermody ,  not  to  speak  of 
innumerable  works  of  a  miscellaneous  character.'  He 
was  also  very  busy  correcting  the  proofs  of  the  '  Leaders 
of  Public  Opmion  in  L-eland,'  which  came  out  anon}^- 
mously  in  July  186L  He  writes  on  the  24th  of  that 
month:  '  My  book  was  pubUshed  a  few  days  ago.  I  do 
not  know  that  I  have  much  to  say  about  it,  except 
that  I  fear  that  I  can't  write  biography  in  the  least.' 

When  he  republished  this  book  in  1903  in  a  new 
form  he  said  about  this  early  production: 

'  Public  opinion  on  L-ish  history  at  that  time  hardly 
existed.  Scarcely  anything  of  real  value  on  the  sub- 
ject had  recently  appeared,  and  my  own  little  book 
showed  only  too  clearly  the  crudity  and  exaggeration 
of  a  writer  in  his  twenty-third  year.  At  all  events, 
it  fell  absolutely  dead.  With  the  exception  of  Mr. 
O'Neill  Daunt,  who  wrote  a  kindly  review  of  it  in  a 
Cork  newspaper  and  who  was  good  enough  to  predict 
for  its  author  some  future  in  literature,  I  do  not  know 
that  it  impressed  anyone.' 

Someone  else,  however,  appears  to  have  been  struck 
with  it.  Dr.  Alexander  (now  Archbishop  of  Armagh) 
showed  that  clearness  of  judgment  and  insight  which 
are  among  the  great  quahties  that  marked  him  out 
for  the  position  he  holds  in  Ireland.  He  writes  that 
man)^  years  ago,  when  he  spent  a  month  or  two  at 
Bagneres,  Lord  Carnwath,  who  was  living  there,  and 
whom  he  used  to  see  constantly,  one  day  put  into  his 
hands  what  he  supposed  to  be  Mr.  Lecky's  first  book, 
the  lives  of  some  great  Irishmen.  '  I  returned  it 
afterwards  to  Lord  C,  and  told  him  that  my  con  vie- 


30  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

tion  was  that  Mr.  Lecky  was  likely  to  become  one  of 
the  greatest  historians  of  the  age.' 

If  the  opinions  expressed  in  it  were  in  some  respects 
immature,  and  the  style  more  ornate  than  Lecky 
afterwards  approved  of,  some  parts  were  thought 
not  unworthy  of  being  retained  in  the  later  editions, 
which  were  to  a  great  extent  rewritten.  To  those 
who  have  read  the  'Leaders,'  whether  in  their  earher 
or  later  form,  the  tomb  of  Grattan  in  Westminster 
Abbey  can  scarcely  fail  to  recall  the  striking  final 
passage  in  the  essay  on  that  great  orator. 


CHAPTER  II 

1861-1867. 

First  visit  to  Spain  —  He  decides  not  to  take  Orders  —  Begins 
the  '  History  of  Rationalism  '  —  Naples  —  Monkstown  — 
Italy  —  Bagneres  —  Chapters  on  the  Declining  Sense  of  the 
Miraculous  —  Pyrenees  —  Second  visit  to  Spain  —  Reads  in 
foreign  libraries  —  Views  about  a  profession  —  Lecture  at 
Portarlington  —  Publication  of  the  '  Rationalism  '  —  Re- 
views —  London  Society  —  Visit  to  tenants  —  Venice  — 
Spezzia  —  Meets  Mr.  Lever  —  Bagneres  —  Montreux  —  Dr. 
Newman  —  Begins  the  '  History  of  European  Morals  '  — 
Literary  methods. 

After  the  publication  of  the  *  Leaders '  Lecky  went 
abroad  again,  although,  as  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Addison 
before  starting,  he  had  'arrived  at  that  stage  when 
the  enthusiasm  for  traveUing  has  passed,  with  its 
novelty,  and  when  it  requires  some  exertion  to  plunge 
into  space.' 

(To  Mr.  A.  Booth.)  '  Pau:  September  11,  1861.  —  I 
have  been  for  the  last  four  or  five  weeks  wandering 
all  over  the  Pyrenees  with  a  volume  of  Spinoza  and 
a  treatise  on  Germany  in  my  pocket,  getting  exceed- 
ingly enthusiastic  about  the  scenery  and  exceedingly 
perplexed  about  the  difference  between  Hegel  and 
SchelUng  and  about  the  nature  of  the  Alexandrian 
Trinity. 

*  My  book  was  in  some  respects  difficult  to  write,  for 
biography  is  not  in  my  line,  and  the  material  for  the 
life  of  Flood  was  so  exceedingly  scanty,  and  for 
the  hfe  of  O'Connell  so  exceedingly  bad,  that  it  was 
far   from   easy   to   make   anything   out   of   them.     I 

31 


32  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

wanted  to  embody  in  the  whole  series  some  theories 
of  mine  about  the  relation  of  patriotism  to  sectari- 
anism (which  I  have  since  found  much  better  ex- 
pressed in  Mr.  Buckle),  and  to  make  a  collection  of 
detached  sentences  from  Grattan's  speeches,  which  I 
admire  greatly.  Please  don't  let  my  book  get  known 
in  T.C.D.' 

His  pleasure  in  travelling  had  reasserted  itself,  for 
he  says:  'Next  to  reading,  I  am  inclined  to  think 
travelling  is  nearly  the  pleasantest  thing  going.'  He 
kept  this  taste  all  his  life,  though  he  disliked  sea  voy- 
ages and  long  journeys  without  interruption.  He 
went  to  Spain,  and  wrote  on  October  9,  1861,  from 
Madrid : 

'  I  have  been  now  for  some  time  in  Spain  and  am 
getting  a  good  deal  into  the  way  of  it.  There  is  a 
great  deal  to  be  seen,  more  beautiful  Gothic  architec- 
ture I  think,  than,  and  nearly  as  much  beautiful 
sculpture  as,  in  any  country  I  know,  an  exceedingly 
quaint,  curious  people,  and  towns  with  very  pretty 
walks  about  them,  where  the  Spanish  ladies  peripateti- 
cise  in  the  most  killing  manner,  with  their  graceful 
mantillas  and  their  never-ceasing  fans.  It  is  also  re- 
freshing in  this  age  of  scepticism  and  Mr.  Buckle  to 
see  a  people  with  such  uncommonly  good  theological 
digestions.  The  number  of  miraculous  images  is  quite 
bewildering.  One  crucifix  at  Burgos  (carved,  it  ap- 
pears, by  Nicodemus)  is  said  'to  have,  among  other 
feats,  raised  ten  men  from  the  dead,  and  its  beard, 
which  is  of  real  hair,  used  once  regularly  to  grow  and 
to  be  cut.' 

At  the  same  time,  in  no  other  country  had  he  'seen 
priests,  nuns,  and  inquisitors  habitually  ridiculed  on 
the  stage.  They  are  usually  represented  as  hypo- 
crites, as  misers,  or  as  making  love  to  one  another.' 


TRAVELS   IN   SPAIN  33 

'The  devotion  of  the  Court  is  saitl  to  be  the  great 
strength  of  Catholicism  in  Spain.  A  h\rge  section  of 
the  Press  is  ultra-liberal.  There  are  an  immense 
number  of  enthusiastic  admirers  of  Garibaldi,  Victor 
Emmanuel,  and  numbers  who  oppose  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Pope  and  reiterate  the  old  charge  that 
the  tone  of  his  allocutions  is  not  quite  apostolical. 
Individually  I  think  they  are  quite  wrong;  (you  remem- 
ber the  first  Papal  allocution  on  record  —  "  Then  began 
Peter  to  curse  and  to  swear ")  —  but  still  the  exist- 
ence of  the  feeling  in  Spain  is  a  striking  sign  of  the 
times.  The  acting  in  Spain  is,  I  think,  better,  as  a 
general  rule,  than  in  any  country  in  wliich  I  have 
been.  The  most  popular  things  are  comic  operas, 
about  the  most  amusing  and  best  got  up  I  have  ever 
seen.  Amusement,  in  fact,  bears,  I  should  think,  a 
larger  proportion  to  business  in  Spain  than  in  any 
other  European  country.' 

He  remained  in  Spain  nine  weeks,  and  was  delighted 
with  the  people  and  towns,  but  found  that  one  has 
to  endure  every  possible  discomfort.  '  Diligence  jour- 
neys of  frightful  length  and  sometimes  along  roads 
much  hke  ploughed  fields;  the  impossibihty  of  sleep- 
ing as  a  general  rule  all  night;  the  impossibility  of 
getting  many  things  udiich  are  almost  necessary  to 
civiUsed  existence,  an  amount  of  staring  that  is  utterly 
annihilating,  and  very  great  language  difficulties.' 

During  the  travelUng  in  Spain  he  used  sometimes 
not  to  speak  to  anyone  for  days,  but  solitude  never 
made  him  feel  lonely  or  depressed;  indeed,  he  had 
loved  it  from  boyhood,  and  acquired  so  much  the 
habit  of  it  that  it  remained  for  him  a  necessity  through 
life  to  spend  several  hours  of  the  day  alone;  and  he 
never  could  do  any  real  work  unless  he  was  abso- 
lutely undisturbed.  He  returned  to  Italy,  where  he 
found  the  diUgence-travelUng  in  midwinter  also  some- 
4 


34  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

what  trying.     Writing  from  Florence,  January  1862, 
he  says* 

'Since  I  wrote  I  remained  for  about  a  month  at 
Nice,  where  it  was  midsummer,  and  thence  went  to 
Bologna,  where  the  snow  was  several  inches  deep. 

'  On  the  whole,  I  must  confess  it  is  not  pleasant 
starting  at  4  a.m.  in  deep  snow  in  a  cold  diligence  for 
an  eighteen  hours'  journey  across  the  dreariest  moun- 
tain passes  (in  the  Apennines)  and  through  a  brigand 
country.  It  almost  makes  one  for  a  short  time  incline 
to  the  absurd  heresy  that  it  would  be  better  to  stop 
at  home.  I  confess  to  getting  sometimes  so  tired  by 
the  diligence  that  the  brigands  would  be  rather  a 
relief  than  otherwise,  and  I  cannot  say  that  I  get  as 
frightened  about  them  as  do  wise  and  sober-minded 
people.  In  Spain,  where  everybody  goes  armed,  I 
got  a  pair  of  pistols,  but  feeling  quite  certain  that  I 
should  blow  myself  up  I  have  never  invested  in  any 
gunpowder.' 

His  enthusiasm  about  Buckle  had  somewhat  toned 
down.  '  Buckle  is,  I  think,  a  very  wonderful  man, 
but  has  taken,  of  course,  only  one  aspect  of  things, 
and  has  borrowed  immensely  from  Montesquieu.' 

He  had  now  definitely  decided  not  to  go  into  the 
Church,  and  did  not  see  his  way  to  any  other  pro- 
fession. 

^Florence:  January  31,  1862.  —  I  don't  go  into  the 
Army  because  I  would  just  as  soon  commit  suicide 
at  once,  and  I  have  a  brother  in  it.  The  only  other 
thing  that  I  know  of  is  the  Bar,  but  I  hate  law.  As  I 
have  no  application  and  no  legal  interest,  I  should 
probably  remain  ten  years  without  getting  one  brief. 
I  should  then  hate  the  duty  of  doing  people's  quarrels 
for  them,  and  the  very  highest  position  for  a  lawyer 
—  Chief  Justice  of  the  Queen's  Bench  —  would,  I 
should  think,  be  intolerable.     Being,  as  you  say,  mad, 


BEGINS   'history   OF  RATIONALISM'  35 

the  only  two  things  I  should  the  least  care  for  are  a 
seat  in  ParUament  or  a  position  as  an  author.  The 
first  I  have  not  the  smallest  chance  of  ever  getting, 
not  having  a  particle  of  interest,  not  being  at  all 
rich,  and  not  agreeing  with  a  dozen  people  in  the 
community.  As  a  writer  I  have  failed  so  egregiously, 
hopelessly,  and  utterly  that  I  have  lost  almost  every 
particle  of  hope  and  confidence  I  ever  possessed.  .  .  . 
An  idle  life  is  all  very  well  for  people  of  the  dining- 
out  class,  but  I  have  no  patience  for  that  kind  of 
life  —  and,  besides,  such  people  are  denounced  in 
Scripture  as  putting  their  talents  in  a  napkin  —  or 
for  those  who  have  (or  can  buy)  great  country  places 
and  take  to  farming  —  though  these,  again,  I  have 
always  maintained  to  be  represented  by  Nebuchad- 
nezzar becoming  a  beast  and  eating  grass.' 

His  thoughts,  however,  soon  cleared;  new  vistas 
opened  before  him  of  unexplored  historical  investiga- 
tion, and  he  began  the  'History  of  Rationalism.' 

'It  is  quite  impossible,'  he  wrote  from  Naples, 
March  16,  1862,  'to  study  theology  to  any  good  pur- 
pose if  you  do  not  at  the  same  time  study  history. 
Religious  opinions  grow  out  of  different  states  of  soci- 
ety, reflect  their  civilisation,  are  altogether  moulded 
and  coloured  by  their  modes  of  thought.  You  will 
perhaps  think  it  a  curious  thing  to  say,  but  I  am 
convinced  that  scarcely  anything  throws  so  much  light 
on  theology  as  a  subject  which,  though  I  think  one 
of  the  most  curious  in  the  whole  scope  of  literature, 
is  amongst  the  least  attended  to  —  the  history  of 
witchcraft.' 

He  had  received  some  encouragement  in  the  shape 
of  an  appreciative  review  of  his  '  Leaders.' 

'  I  got  the  other  day  a  long  and  extremely  flattering 
review  of  my  "  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion "  in  the 
Cork  Examiner  (I  believe  Macguire's  paper)  from  the 


36  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

Young  Ireland  and  Roman  Catholic  point  of  view. 
The  reviewer  says:  "The  author  conceals  his  name, 
but  we  are  inclined  to  think  from  internal  evidence 
that  he  is  connected  with  T.C.D,  Perhaps  he  is  one 
of  that  patriotic  band  who  in  1860  introduced  the 
question  of  the  Union  into  the  Historical  Debating 
Society.'" 

He  remained  some  five  or  six  weeks  at  Naples,  and, 
in  spite  of  his  feeling  ill  part  of  the  time,  it  was  to  him 
a  perfect  Paradise.  '  An  absolute  monomania,  an 
infatuation  perfectly  childish  and  insane,'  as  he 
afterwards  wrote.  He  remembered  being  just  able 
to  hobble  to  the  Villa  Reale,  and  there  most  delib- 
erately coming  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  better 
to  be  ill  at  Naples  than  to  be  well  anywhere  else.  '  I 
have  often  thought  that  death  would  lose  half  its 
bitterness  on  the  cliff  of  Sorrento  with  that  glorious 
sea  below.'  He  spent  Easter  in  Rome,  and  returned 
to  Monkstown,  Ireland,  where  he  passed  the  summer 
with  his  relations,  and  had  a  few  copies  printed  of 
'  Angelina,'  which  he  afterwards  pubhshed  in  his  poems 
as  '  A  Tale  of  Modern  Italy.'  In  the  autumn  of  that 
year  Lord  and  Lady  Carnwath  settled  with  their 
family  at  Bagneres  de  Bigorre,  where  Edward  Lecky 
became  henceforth  a  frequent  visitor. 

He  had  been  writing  a  treatise  on  'The  declining 
sense  of  the  Miraculous,'  which  was  first  printed  sep- 
arately and  afterwards  formed  the  first  two  chapters 
of  the  '  History  of  Rationalism.'  He  went  in  the 
autumn  to  the  Lake  of  Como,  travelhng  through  all 
the  glorious  scenery  of  the  Via  Mala  and  the  Spliigen, 
which  he  saw  for  the  first  time. 

'Nice:  November  1,  1862.  —  I  have  been  for  a  long 
time  at  Genoa  in  a  state  of  the  most  supreme  felicity, 
reading  and  writing  most  of  the  day  and  walking  half 


'declining  sense  of  the  miraculous'      37 

the  night  by  moonUght,  through  the  streets  of  marble 
palaces,  or  going  to  see  Ristori,  who  has  been  com- 
mitting nightly  murders  there  with  a  ferocity  that  is 
truly  diabolical.  After  all,  it  is  an  open  question 
whether  one  should  go  to  Italy,  for  it  spoils  one  for 
all  the  rest  of  the  world. 

*  I  am  hard  at  work,  and  have  been  for  a  long  time, 
on  an  enormous  book  which,  as  it  seems  to  me,  will 
ultimately  comprise  almost  every  conceivable  sub- 
ject. It  is  on  the  laws  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  specu- 
lative opinions.  .  .  .  This  subject  I  am  examining 
historically  and  at  length.  .  .  .  The  chapters  I  read 
you  at  Monkstown  form  part  of  it.  I  have  written 
a  great  deal  more  since.  Heaven  only  knows  how 
much  I  have  still  to  write.  Although  I  have  long  been 
reading  incessantly  with  a  view  to  it,  I  am,  as  you  will 
easily  imagine,  still  rather  appalled  at  the  amount  of 
knowledge  required,  and  the  many  vistas  that  open  as 
I  proceed  seem  endless.' 

He  spent  the  winter  with  his  family  as  Bagneres 
de  Bigorre,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  weeks  at  Pau, 
whence  he  writes  (January  10,  1863) : 

*I  have  been  gathering  together  a  large,  and  rare 
library  of  old  Latin  and  French  books  on  witchcraft, 
written  by  the  Inquisitors  of  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries.  Having  been  completely  buried  in 
the  subject  and  (as  one  usually  is  when  exploring 
quite  unknown  and  out-of-the-way  departments  of 
literature)  supremely  happy  in  the  research,  having 
duly  devoured  some  eighteen  or  twenty  books  on  the 
subject,  I  came  here  to  take  a  course  of  a  volume  a 
day  reading  for  a  few  weeks  in  the  circulating  library. 
I  am  waiting  with  great  impatience  for  a  treatise  on 
the  Devil  by  Psellus  (a  Byzantine  author  of  the 
eleventh  century),  having  got  which,  I  mean  to  go  to 
a  little  village  in  the  mountains  till  I  have  mastered 
it  and  a  medical  treatise  by  Cabanis  which  I  have 
taken  to.^ 


38  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

'Those  who  try  to  do  their  duty  find  in  the  effort 
its  own  reward;  it  dispels  every  fear,  it  dispenses  with 
every  hope.  All  cannot  be  great  teachers  or  great 
philanthropists,  but  all,  if  they  would  honestly  and 
with  self-sacrifice  labour  to  do  so,  could  do  something 
in  the  two  great  fields  of  duty  in  alleviating  sorrow 
or  in  correcting  error.  Few,  very  few,  do  so  from  a 
mere  sense  of  duty,  and  therefore  these  fields  are  gen- 
erally abandoned  to  those  who  make  them  a  profes- 
sion, a  mere  means  of  money-making;  but  those  who 
are  the  exceptions  never  regret  their  career.' 

He  remained  a  long  time  at  Paris,  having  discovered 
that  anyone  who  likes  may  read  in  the  great  library 
in  the  Rue  Richelieu,  and  he  made  up  some  of  the 
out-of-the-way  art  questions  he  was  writing  about, 
and  also  went  three  times  to  hear  Pere  Felix,  who 
was  then  said  to  be  the  greatest  preacher  in  the 
world,  *  an  extremely  eloquent  man,  perfect  rhetoric 
flowing  with  unbroken  rapidity  from  the  beginning 
to  the  end,  very  sarcastic,  admirable  action,'  but  the 
substance  was  not  equal  to  the  form. 

He  went  to  Ireland  in  April,  took  his  M.A.  degree, 
printed  the  'Declining  Sense  of  the  Miraculous,'  and 
returned  to  Paris,  where  he  read  much  in  the  Biblio- 
theque  Imperiale,  and  got,  as  he  always  did, '  enthu- 
siastic about  the  charms  of  France.'  He  next  writes 
from  Bagneres  de  Luchon  (August  19,  1863) : 

'The  Pyrenees  have  been,  till  within  a  day  or  two, 
so  hot  that  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  exist  with  one's 
clothes  on;  and  the  garrulity  of  French  ladies,  the 
ceaseless  cracking  of  whips,  barking  of  dogs,  and  other 
atrocious  sounds  make  me  perfectly  miserable,  espe- 
cially as  I  am  trying  vainly  to  understand  the  theol- 
ogy of  the  Gnostics  and  the  philosophy  of  Scotus 
Erigena. 


PYRENEES  39 

Bagn^res  de  Bigorre,  where  he  spent  the  autumn 
with  his  relations,  liad  become  a  favourite  resort  of 
his.  It  had  the  advantage  of  an  almost  perfect  cli- 
mate at  that  time  of  j^ear,  and  of  a  very  good  pubUc 
Ubrary,  the  deputy  of  the  town,  who  was  a  preat 
antiquarian,  having  given  his  books  to  it.  As  scarcely 
anyone  frequented  this  library,  Lecky  found  it  very 
agreeable,  and  followed  up  a  good  many  lines  of 
obscure  reading,  and  he  also  wrote  a  good  deal. 

Many  years  afterwards  —  in  1885  —  he  gave  Mr. 
Booth,  in  a  letter,  some  reminiscences  of  the  Pyrenees 
in  those  days: 

'I  know  them  [the  Pyrenees]  extremely  well,  as  my 
mother  lived  for  several  years  at  Bagneres  de  Bigorre, 
where  soon  after  leaving  college  I  had  to  go  for  part 
of  every  year.  The  railway,  however,  had  then  only 
got  to  Bagneres.  Aregles,  was  then  a  very  pretty 
but  very  dull  little  village,  with  a  curious  and  beauti- 
fully situated  church  dedicated  to  St.  Savin,  who 
loved  God  so  much  that  when  he  put  a  candle  to  his 
breast  it  took  fire,  as  is  shown  by  a  picture  there. 
There  is  also  a  very  curious  church,  Templar,  castel- 
lated, and  half  a  fortress,  with  a  separate  entrance  and 
benitier  for  the  cagots  (or  accursed  race)  at  Luz  not 
far  off.  All  that  country  is  lovely,  and  the  roads 
from  St.  Sauveur  to  Gavarnie,  and  in  another  direc- 
tion to  Bagneres  de  Luchon,  are,  I  think,  about  as 
beautiful  as  anything  I  have  ever  seen.  The  road 
from  Luz  to  Cauterets,  is  also  charming.  I  knew 
Lourdes  before  the  apparition,  when  it  was  one  of  the 
most  neglected  places  in  the  Pyrenees,  and  also  in  the 
years  after  the  apparition,  when  it  had  little  more 
than  a  local  reputation.  It  used  to  be  said  that  the 
poor  people  when  they  were  ill  went  to  the  miracu- 
lous water  of  Lourdes,  but  the  priests  to  the  mineral 
waters  at  Bagneres;  and  it  was  so  little  known  that 
when  I  met  Dean  Stanley  in  the  Pyrenees  I  was  the 


40  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

first  person  who  told  him  of  its  existence.  Afterwards 
the  Legitimists  took  it  up,  and  it  soon  attained  its 
present  popularity.' 

Lecky's  next  move  was  another  journey  to  Spain. 

Madrid:  December  6.  —  'To  go  from  France  to  Spain 
is  travelling  not  merely  through  space,  but  also  through 
time  into  another  age  of  civilisation.  ...  I  have 
been  indulging  in  an  immense  amount  of  literary 
vagabondage,  and  find  the  public  libraries  very  curi- 
ous. The  librarians  look  upon  me  as  an  inexplicable 
phenomenon,  and  their  eyes  grow  perfectly  circular 
at  the  names  of  the  books  I  ask  for;  but  they  are  very 
obliging,  and  I  have  mastered  an  immense  number 
of  curious  old  Latin  books  by  Spanish  and  other 
theologians  I  had  never  heard  of  before.' 

After  visiting  Granada,  Malaga,  Cadiz,  Seville,  To- 
ledo, and  Madrid,  he  went  to  Barcelona,  which  he 
thought  at  that  time  the  only  really  pleasant  town  in 
Spain,  and  one  of  the  pleasantest  in  the  world.  There 
he 

'stopped  for  a  long  time  reading  in  a  truly  glorious 
public  library  (formed  from  those  of  suppressed  mon- 
asteries) the  original  works  on  the  Inquisition,  &c., 
&c.  The  promenades  were  all  full  of  beautiful  (oh! 
such  beautiful)  people  till  ten  o'clock  at  night;  fires 
were  undreamed  of;  all  the  colouring  was  of  midsum- 
mer. I  left  it  just  before  Christmas  —  spent  three 
weeks  at  the  libraries  of  Montpellier,  Avignon,  and 
Toulon.' 

He   proceeded   via  the   Corniche  to   Florence   and 

Rome,  and  writes  from  Sorrento: 

*  Nothing  particular  was  going  on  in  Rome  except 
assassinations  —  except,  indeed,  that  Dupanloup  of 
Orleans  was   preaching   every   day   to   an   enormous 


VIEWS   ABOUT   A    PROFESSION  41 

congregation  in  the  "Gesu."  He  preaches  Uke  a 
charge  of  cavahy,  very  fiery,  but  sometimes  very 
touchingly,  and  in  an  odd  familiar,  discursive  (John 
Greggish)  style.' 

He  returned  to  Rome  at  the  end  of  April  and  '  archseol- 
ogised'  a  good  deal,  enjoying  the  absence  of  tourists, 
who  had  now  mostly  fled.  Part  of  the  summer  was 
spent  in  Switzerland,  and  on  the  way  to  Bagneres  he 
wrote  from  Nimes,  August  14,  1864: 

*To  say  the  truth,  I  have  been  absorbing  oceans  of 
political  economy,  and  have  got  so  dreadfully  shocked 
and  frightened  by  all  its  denunciations  of  "  unproduc- 
tive consumers "  and  "  luxury  "  and  all  the  rest  of  it 
that  I  feel  perfectly  disreputable  whenever  I  meet 
anyone  I  know  who  is  in  a  profession,  and  shrink  with 
perfect  horror  from  all  who  regard  me  as  an  idler.  .  .  . 
So  I  mean  to  publish  a  long  book  with  my  name. 
Adam  Smith,  indeed,  considers  authors  in  the  un- 
productive classes,  but  J.  B.  Say  and  most  modern 
economists  say  they  are  "  immaterial  producers,"  so  I 
suppose  when  known  to  belong  to  that  class  I  shall  be 
able  without  too  much  shame  and  trepidation  to  en- 
counter the  legal  ex-historicals  of  the  Four  Courts.' 

He  feels  that,  having  now  a  large  library,  he  must 
eventually  settle  down  in  London; 

*  that  is  to  say,  if  I  could  get  a  patent  of  respectability 
as  an  "immaterial  producer."  I  suppose,  on  the 
whole,  I  have  wandered  a  long  way  from  Bagneres 
to  Cadiz,  from  Cadiz  to  Naples,  and  from  Naples  back 
through  Switzerland  to  Bagneres,  but  somehow  or 
another  I  have  scarcely  the  sense  of  motion,  burying 
myself  so  quickly  in  libraries,  and  then  a  night  in  a 
locomotive  armchair  takes  one  so  very  far.  .  .  .  The 
French  are  at  present  discussing  with  terrific  energy 
the  question  whether  they  are  mind  or  matter,  and 


42  WILLIAM   EDWAED   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

(under  the  guidance  of  Renan,  Littr^,  and  Taine)  are 
coming  very  rapidly  to  the  conclusion  that  they  are 
the  latter.' 

On  a  recent  bereavement  his  correspondent  had 
suffered  he  writes  at  this  time: 

Cauterets:  September  8,  1864.  —  *  After  all,  that  hope 
of  immortality  which  alone  can  light  up  the  darkness 
of  the  grave  is  not  the  peculiar  offspring  of  any  creed,  or 
even  the  result  of  any  particular  argument,  but  is  rather 
an  instinct  implanted  in  our  nature,  and  has  been  the 
sure  hope  and  consolation  of  the  best  and  wisest  men 
of  all  ages  and  religions.' 

And  in  the  same  letter  he  refers  again  to  the  non- 
producer  theory :  '  I  suspect  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
delusion  about  going  into  professions  on  philanthropic 
grounds.  It  commonly  means  merely  that  a  rich 
man,  through  his  exceeding  love  of  his  species,  appro- 
priates a  professional  income  which  would  otherwise 
belong  to  a  poorer  man.'  He  was  now  preparing  to 
go  to  London  with  the  manuscript  of  the  '  Rational- 
ism.' 

'I  look  upon  my  stay  here  with  positive  consterna- 
tion, for  I  want  to  try  and  get  a  decent  publisher  to 
take  possession  of  my  scribblings,  and  I  have  the 
vaguest  notions  how  to  set  about  it  or  how  long  I 
shall  be  delayed.  When  I  succeed  I  shall  go  to  Salt 
Hill  and  correct  proof-sheets.  ...  I  am  at  present 
putting  the  final  touches  to  my  book  at  a  tiny  little 
town,  3,200  feet  above  the  sea,  and  surrounded  by 
the  most  glorious  mountains,  seven  or  eight  thou- 
sand feet  high.' 

He  succeeded  in  finding  a  publisher,  Messrs.  Long- 
mans, with  whom  from  that  moment  his  relations 
were  always  very  amicable.     He  spent  part  of  the 


LECTURE  ON   EARLY   CHRISTIAN   ART  43 

winter  at  Kingstown,  correcting  the  proof-sheets  of 
the  '  History  of  Rationahsni '  '  liaving  sometimes 
fifteen  or  sixteen  at  once,  which,  as  each  proof  con- 
sists of  sixteen  pages,  and  as  correction  impUes  read- 
ing it  over  three  or  four  times  and  verifying  many 
quotations,  is  no  joke.' 

In  January  1865  he  was  asked  to  give  a  lecture  on 
'  Early  Christian  Art '  at  Portarlington  to  an  audience 
of  young  ladies,  which  greatly  alarmed  him,  as  he 
did  not  know  how  that  '  dangerous  class '  should  be 
addressed,  as  he  had  not  spoken  since  the  Historical, 
and  as  he  was  aware  that  his  audience  knew  nothing 
whatever  on  the  subject. 

Kingstown,  February  1,  1865.  —  'My  lecture  duly 
went  off  on  Saturday.  I  was  exceedingly  frightened 
at  the  prospect,  and  went  specially  to  the  Four  Courts 
to  consult  Plunket  as  to  how  one  ought  to  address 
young  ladies,  but  he  could  only  tell  me  to  trust  to 
instinct;  besides,  not  having  spoken  once  for  three 
years,  I  questioned  whether  my  power  remained.  We 
had  a  very  large  audience.  The  sublimity  of  J.  P.'s 
flanked  the  desk,  and  ferocious  Catholics  and  ferocious 
Protestants,  hke  the  wolves  and  lambs  in  the  Millen- 
nium, were  harmonised  on  the  benches.  I  found  at 
the  beginning  that  a  quiet  conversational  tone  was 
quite  out  of  my  power,  so  I  went  off  in  the  high- 
pressure  "  Historical "  style,  and  went  on  for  about 
fifty-five  minutes.  The  Leinster  Express  reporters 
despairingly  said  it  was  impossible  to  keep  pace  with 
my  dehvery,  so  I  had,  to  my  disgust,  to  write  a  digest. 
I  found  next  day  a  short  notice  in  the  Irish  Times 
complimenting  me  on  the  "  language  of  exquisite 
simplicity"  with  which  I  clothed  my  ideas,  giving 
very  elaborately  all  my  Christian  names  and  only 
omitting  my  surname.  Alas!  such  is  fame.  I  need 
scarcely  say  I  did  not  write  to  correct  the  mistake.' 


44  WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

The  '  History  of  the  Rise  and  Influence  of  the  Spirit 
of  Rationahsm  in  Europe '  was  pubhshed  in  January 
1865,  and  in  sending  a  copy  to  his  uncle,  Mr.  Godfrey 
Tallents,  he  wrote: 

'  Its  opinions,  I  fear,  are  not  your  opinions,  and  its 
subjects  would  scarcely  interest  you.  Yet  such  is 
human,  or  at  least  author,  nature  that  I  could  not  help 
wishing  that  what  represented  a  large  measure  of  my 
thoughts  and  feelings  should  find  some  place  at  New- 
ark. I  have  been  leading  for  some  time  past  such  a 
half  vagabond,  half  bookworm  existence,  diving  into 
half  the  libraries  of  Europe  and  breaking  unhappy 
porters'  backs  with  boxes  of  books,  and  have  at  the 
same  time  been  so  much  alone,  that  writing  became 
almost  a  necessary  vent;  but  this  is  the  first  time  that 
I  ventured  to  do  it  in  my  own  name.  For  the  last 
three  months  I  have  been  in  an  hotel  in  Ireland, 
mainly  occupied  with  proof-sheets;  to-morrow  I  hope 
to  cross  to  France  and  in  a  few  days  to  be  at  Nice, 
there  to  remain  all  February  and  a  little  of  March.' 

In  passing  through  London,  he  saw  Mr.  Longman, 
who,  he  writes  to  Mr.  Booth, 

'was  pleased  to  be  very  encouraging,  saying  he  had 
shown  it  to  several  people,  who  appeared  all  to  have 
been  a  good  deal  struck  with  it.  Two,  it  seems,  have 
been  particularly  emphatic  in  their  eulogies  —  Mr. 
Reeve,  the  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  and  Froude, 
who  instantly  wanted  to  put  me  down  as  a  contrib- 
utor to  Fraser,  which  I  don't  at  present  mean  to 
become.' 

In  February  1865  Mr.  Thomas  Longman  wrote  to 
him: 

'It  will  be  gratifying  to  you  to  know  that  there  is 
but  one  opinion  amongst  the  highest  class  of  reading 
and  thinking  men  on  the  distinguished  merits  of  your 


THE    'history   of  RATIONALISM*  45 

book.  I  shall  enclose  you  a  letter  I  have  received 
from  the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  and  i  think  you  will  be 
pleased  to  read  it.  This,  however,  is  only  one  of  the 
many  opinions  that  have  come  before  me,  all  being  in 
the  highest  terms  of  commendation,  and  I  have 
reason  to  know  that  the  book  has  become  a  subject 
of  conversation  in  a  large  circle  of  the  most  distin- 
guished literary  men  in  London,  many  of  whom  have 
expressed  their  desire  to  make  your  personal  ac- 
quaintance.' 

Dean  Milman  said  in  his  letter: 

'I  have  read  Mr.  Lecky's  book  with  great  pleasure 
and  admiration.  On  its  literary  merits  I  think  that  I 
can  speak  without  any  bias,  and  on  its  literary  merits 
I  should  pass  a  very  favourable  judgment.  The  range 
of  reading  is  most  extensive.  He  has  evidently  prof- 
ited largely  by  foreign  libraries.  In  this  respect  he 
approaches,  if  he  does  not  equal.  Buckle;  but  as  to  his 
mind  Buckle,  after  all,  was  a  bit  of  a  bigot.  Mr. 
Lecky  has  much  larger  views  and  a  far  more  dispas- 
sionate judgment.  Buckle  hated  intolerance  so  much 
as  to  be  blind,  or  nearly  bUnd,  to  rehgion.  Mr.  Lecky 
pays  all  respect  and  gives  due  honour  to  rehgion,  even 
as  to  its  worldly  influence.  In  some  respects,  on  the 
other  hand,  my  judgment  may  be  somewhat  warped. 
The  book  so  completely  reflects  my  own  opinions  — 
opinions  which  for  many  years  I  have  been  endeav- 
ouring to  express  at  much  disadvantage.  It  is  the 
book  which  was  wanted,  especially  wanted  at  the 
present  time  —  one  which  if  I  had  been  younger  I 
might  have  attempted  to  write,  but  which  I  rejoice  to 
find  has  fallen  into  such  able  hands  and  has  been 
taken  up  by  a  man  fully  qualified  to  do  justice  to  it.' 

Dean  Milman  expressed  a  wish  to  make  his  acquaint- 
ance, and  offered  to  send  some  corrections  for  the  next 
edition : 


46  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

'The  said  book  has  been  a  decided  success/  Lecky 
wrote  from  Nice,  St.  Patrick's  Day,  1865.  'The  only 
printed  review  I  have  seen  is  an  exceedingly  stupidly 

written  one  in  the .     Two  copies  have  come 

to  me,  so  I  send  you  one,  which  may  possibly  amuse 
you;  but  Longman  tells  me  that  Mr.  Reeve  has  written 
a  review  of  me  for  next  month's  Edinburgh.  It  is 
very  egotistical  of  me  telhng  you  all  this,  but  you  are 
the  only  person  in  the  world  who  ever  foretold  that 
I  might  be  anything  but  a  dead  failure  in  the  literary 
world,  so  I  thought  it  might  interest  you.' 

Bagneres  de  Bigorre:  April  8.  — '  The  Spectator  is 
mainly  occupied  with  assailing  my  method,  but  is 
extremely  eulogistic,  and  ends  by  recommending  my 
book  very  warmly  as  likely  to  be  especially  invaluable 
to  the  clergy.  An  ex-Quaker  gentleman  in  Dublin 
has  also  written  to  let  off  his  very  great  enthusiasm, 
but  he  says  the  early  Quakers  were  not  worthy  of 
Bedlam.  Dr.  Shaw  had  only  got  to  the  end  of  my 
witches  when  he  found  it  necessary  to  write  and  say 
I  was  an  honour  to  the  University,  and  that  he  wanted 
to  review  me.  The  Dean  of  Emly  ^  found  my  book 
discussed  energetically  at  Oxford  when  there  preach- 


1  Now  Archbishop  of  Armagh.  His  judgment  on  the  'Ra- 
tionalism' has  been  modified  since,  as  the  poem  he  wrote  on  the 
occasion  of  the  unveiling  of  the  statue  at  Trinity  College,  Dub- 
lin, shows: 

Champion  of  Reason,  'twas  high  joy  for  him 

To  watch  its  early  dawning  not  in  vain 
First  whitening  on  thought's  window  long  time  dim, 

Till  all  the  morning  flash 'd  from  every  pane. 
Truth  was  more  to  him  than  a  world  beside  — 
That  one  foundation  did  all  else  sustain. 

The  poem  appeared  in  the  Times  of  May  11,  1906. 


THE    'history   of   RATIONALISM'  47 

ing,  but  that  it  was  evidently  one  no  orthodox  man 
could  approve  of.  Happily  my  orthodoxy  is  quite 
safe  under  the  broad  brim  of  Dr.  Mihnan's  shovel 
hat,  but  I  am  so,  so  sick  of  writing.  Were  I  only  in 
the  way  of  speaking,  few  things  would  give  me  greater 
pleasure  than  to  throw  pen,  ink,  and  paper  into  the 
fire  (not  the  ink,  by  the  bye,  for  that  might  put  it 
out)  —  dreary,  frigid  occupation.' 

Bagnbres  de  Bigorre:  June  \,  1865.  — '  Longman  told 
me  about  a  week  ago  that  only  thirty-seven  copies 
remained,  and  is  rather  in  a  hurry  for  the  next  edi- 
tion, but  says  the  elections  will  suspend  the  sale  of 
books.  Longman  threatens  me  with  dinners  (that 
inevitable  consequence  of  succeeding  in  anything  in 
England),  and  I  think  I  shall  stop  in  London  ten  days 
or  a  fortnight.  It  is  very  hot  here  and  I  have  been 
very  idle,  scarcely  writing  a  line.  I  have  read,  how- 
ever, a  respectable  amount,  and  very  carefully  revised 
my  book  for  the  second  edition,  correcting  two  or  three 
inaccuracies  in  fact  and  two  or  three  dozen  inaccu- 
racies in  composition,  and  adding  a  few  lines.' 

He  left  his  relations,  and,  having  accepted  a  dinner 
invitation  in  London,  hurried  through  Paris,  and  was 
in  London  early  in  June: 

'  I  can  only  free  myself  from  the  imputation  of  tem- 
porary insanity,'  he  wrote  on  July  13,  1865,  '  by  observ- 
ing that  it  was  a  literary  dinner  (at  Longman's) 
and  that  my  particular  magnet  was  Froude.  Froude 
is  much  younger-looking  than  I  expected.  He  does 
not  look  more  than  forty,  though  he  is,  I  fancy,  six 
or  seven  years  older.  He  is  very  agreeable,  talks 
pictorially,  something  in  the  style  of  Wills,^  and  is 
particularly  amusing.  I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of 
him,  for  besides  Longman's,  he  dined  this  evening  at 

'  The  Rev.  Freeman  Wills,  a  distinguished  speaker  at  the 
Historical  Society. 


48  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

the  "  Literary  Club,"  to  which  I  was  invited  (Walpole, 
M.P.,  Lord  Kingsdown,  the  great  lawyer,  Reeve,  and 
Newton,  of  the  British  Museum,  were  there),  and  as 
Froude  sat  next  to  me,  and  dinner  lasted  more  than 
two  and  a  half  hours,  we  talked  to  no  end.' 

An  entry  in  Sir  Mountstuart  Grant  Duff's  diary 
may  find  a  place  here: 

June  16,  1865.  — '  Dined  with  Lord  Houghton,  a 
large  party  given  to  introduce  Lecky,  whose  '  History 
of  Rationalism'  is  exciting  great  attention.  There 
were  present  Grote,  Sir  Edmund  Head,  Sir  Henry 
Holland,  Murchison,  Arthur  Russell,  Venables,  and 
Higgins,  better  known  as  Jacob  Omnium,  &c.' 

He  was  now  launched  into  society  and  formed  many 
friendships  which  time  only  strengthened.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  the  *  Rationalism '  made  its  mark 
on  the  Continent  as  well  as  in  England.  It  was,  as 
Dean  Milman  said,  the  book  that  was  wanted,  system- 
atising  the  currents  of  thought  that  pervaded  the 
intellectual  atmosphere.  Among  the  many  letters 
received  after  Lecky's  death  there  was  one  that  spe- 
cially alludes  to  this  period : 

'The  young  people  of  this  generation,'  writes  Lady 
Stanhope,  'owe  him  a  special  debt  of  gratitude  for 
his  "History  of  Rationalism."  I  can  well  remember 
how  it  focussed  and  classified  the  feelings  which  were 
everywhere  in  the  air,  and  which  in  this  work  found 
their  reason  and  their  record.  In  these  days  of  wide 
toleration  the  struggle  caused  by  breaking  down  the 
trammels  of  prejudice  and  of  narrow  views  is  apt  to 
be  overlooked,  and  Mr.  Lecky  was  emphatically  the 
leader  in  many  a  righteous  assault,  and  nobly  to  the 
end  did  he  carry  the  torch  of  truth  and  of  a  just  judg- 
ment.' 


THE    'HISTORY    OF   RATIONALISM'  49 

The  title  at  first  was  somewhat  of  a  deterrent  to 
those  who  associated  it  with  German  biblical  criti- 
cism, and  men  Hke  Dean  Milman  and  Sir  Charles 
Lyell  deplored  that  it  should  give  rise  to  misappre- 
hension, although  Dean  Milman  confessed  that  it 
would  have  been  difficult  to  find  a  better  one.  Those 
who  read  it  soon  found  that,  far  from  there  being  any 
want  of  reverence  for  religion  in  Lecky's  book,  he 
showed  how  the  spirit  of  progress  going  hand  in  hand 
with  tolerance  gradually  eliminated  the  elements 
that  were  unworthy  of  true  religion,  often  converting 
them  into  poetry,  to  quote  his  own  words: 

'The  reUgion  of  one  age  is  often  the  poetry  of  the 
next.  .  .  .  The  gods  of  heathenism  were  thus  trans- 
lated from  the  sphere  of  religion  to  the  sphere  of  poetry. 
The  grotesque  legends  and  the  harsh  doctrines  of  a 
superstitious  faith  are  so  explained  away  that  they 
appear  graceful  myths  foreshadowing  and  illustrating 
the  conceptions  of  a  brighter  day.  For  a  time  they 
flicker  upon  the  horizon  with  a  softly  beautiful  light 
that  enchants  the  poet  and  lends  a  charm  to  the  new 
system  with  which  they  are  made  to  blend,  but  at 
last  this  too  fades  away.  Religious  ideas  die  like  the 
sun;  their  last  rays,  possessing  Uttle  heat,  are.expended 
in  creating  beauty.'  ^ 

Twenty  years  after  the  publication  of  the '  Rational- 
ism' M.  Albert  Reville,  the  greatest  French  authority 
on  the  history  of  religions,  said  in  a  review  of  the 
book: 

'  Le  rationalisme  dont  M.  Lecky  raconte  la  formation 
et  les  victoires  continues  n'a  rien  de  commun  avec  le 
nihilisme  belliqueux  et  iconoclaste  que  Ton  prend  trop 
souvent  aujourd'hui  pour  du  liberalisme.     Ce  rational- 


>  History  of  Rationalism,  cabinet  edition,  vol.  i.  pp.  260,  261. 
5 


50  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

isme  est  religieux  et  tout  dispose  a  s'incliner  devant 
les  croyances  religieuses  dans  la  mesure  ou  elles  favo- 
risent  la  moralite  publique  et  privee,  I'essor  de  Tesprit 
et  le  progres  humain.  ..."  L'Histoire  du  Rational- 
isme"  de  M.  Lecky  restera  comme  Tun  des  documents 
les  plus  instructifs  de  revolution  religieuse  et  politique 
du  monde  moderne.  .  .  .' 

The  book  has  now  stood  the  test  of  more  than  forty 
years,  and  its  vitality  has  not  been  impaired.  'Its 
influence  upon  human  thought/  writes  Mr.  Andrew 
White,  'has  been  not  only  powerful  but  in  a  high 
degree  salutary.'  The  different  way  in  which  it  is 
viewed  at  present  by  the  same  people  who  denounced 
it  on  its  first  appearance  is  a  remarkable  illustration 
of  Lecky's  own  arguments. 

After  some  weeks  of  lionising  he  went  to  Ireland. 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  Salt  Hill,  Monkstown:  September 
9. — 'My  literary  news  is  scanty:  221  copies  of  my 
book  (second  edition)  issued  from  Longman's  the  first 
day.  I  have  been  a  little  knocked  up,  have  been 
specially  ordered  not  to  read  and  think  (those  opera- 
tions being,  Stokes  *  tells  me,  outrages  upon  the  laws 
of  nature),  and  desiring  to  be  perfectly  unintellectual 
I  went  to  visit  my  friends,  and  have  been  for  about 
three  weeks  wandering  to  and  fro.  I  went,  among 
other  things,  to  visit  (I  am  ashamed  to  say  for  the  first 
time)  some  of  my  tenants,  at  the  prospect  of  which 
I  was  considerably  alarmed,  for  when  one  hardly 
knows  the  difference  between  a  potato  and  a  turnip 
it  is  not  easy  to  be  very  imposing  in  conversation  with 
farmers.  However,  I  think  that  I  acquitted  myself 
satisfactorily,  lamented  the  appearance  of  the  potatoes, 
eulogised  cows,  did  the  cattle  disease,  and  abused  the 

»  A  great  Dublin  physician.  The  Irish  tradition  is  that  in 
his  day  no  one  died  in  DubUn. 


REVIEWS   OF  THE    'RATIONALISM'  51 

Government  for  not  stopping  their  importation  (which 
they  had  not  yet  done).' 

Soon  afterwards  he  went  abroad  again,  to  Holland 
and  Germany,  in  some  parts  where  he  had  not  been 
before,  and  he  returned  to  Dresden,  attracted  as  he 
always  was  by  the  unique  picture-gallery  and  the 
Madonna  di  San  Sisto,  which  he  had  described  after 
his  first  visit  to  Dresden  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of 
a  lover  of  art  in  the  *  Religious  Tendencies  of  the  Age.' 
He  went  to  Vienna,  whence  he  writes: 

*A  curious  article  that  of  the  Westminster  to  be 
written  by  an  Anglican  clergyman,^  was  it  not?  The 
British  Quarterly  has  opened  rather  heavy  artillery 
upon  me,  but  has  not  done  me  much  harm.  Another 
quarterly,  the  Journal  of  Sacred  Literature,  has  also 
reviewed  me  at  great  length.  The  Dublin  Review  and 
the  Anthropological  (a  review  set  up,  I  beUeve,  by 
some  scientific  gentlemen  who  say  they  are  monkeys) 
I  have  not  seen,  and  I  find  Fitzjames  Stephen  has 
just  perpetrated  an  article  upon  me  which  he  has 
long  been  threatening  in  Fraser.  An  American  author 
(a  Mr.  Hillard),  who  says  I  have  made  an  epoch  in 
his  Ufe,  has  been  writing  to  me,  and  tells  rne  that  a 
New  York  publisher  is  going  to  reprint  me.' 

The  book  was  evidently  making  a  stir  in  America. 
Mr.  Ticknor  (the  historian  of  Spanish  literature)  wrote 
from  Boston  an  enthusiastic  letter  expressing  '  the 
pleasure  and  benefit'  he  had  received  from  the  book, 
and  saying  it  was  much  read  and  by  the  most  thought- 
ful people;  that  there  were  several  copies  in  all  the 
public  libraries;  that  its  circulation  was  fast  increas- 
ing; and  that,  though  in  the  rest  of  the  country,  where 
the  old  ideas  were  more  tenacious,  it  might  be  less 


'Presbyter  Anglicanus.' 


52  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

broadly  accepted,  it  would  do  its  work  more  or  less 
wherever  it  went.  Mr.  Lea,'  the  historian  of  the 
Inquisition  in  sending  him  a  volume  of  essays,  wrote 
from  Philadelphia,  U.S.A. : 

'  Your  book  is  one  which  I  think  can  scarcely  fail  to 
exercise  influence  on  the  direction  and  progress  of 
thought,  and  I  trust  that  you  will  follow  it  with  others 
which  may  aid  in  the  development  of  a  school  in  which 
history  may  be  taught  as  it  should  be.  We  have  had 
enough  annalists  to  chronicle  political  intrigues  and 
miUtary  achievements;  but  that  which  constitutes 
the  inner  life  of  a  people,  and  from  which  are  to  be 
drawn  the  lessons  of  the  past  that  will  guide  us  in  the 
future,  has  hitherto  been  too  much  neglected.  Your 
richly  stored  pages  show  how  much  there  is  to  be 
learned  when  apparently  insignificant  facts  are 
brought  together  from  the  most  varied  sources  and 
made  to  reflect  light  upon  each  other.' 

He  subsequently  went  to  Venice  and  spent  three 
weeks  at  Spezzia,  where  he  met  Mr.  Lever.  A  letter 
written  about  this  time  to  Mr.  Booth  completely 
disposes  of  the  legend  that  as  an  undergraduate  he 
did  the  honours  of  Trinity  College  to  Charles  Lever: 

Pisa:  January  2,  1866.  — '  Spezzia  I  was  enchanted 
with.  It  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  places  I  have 
ever  seen,  with  innumerable  walks  and  perfectly 
quiet,  and  the  climate  better  than  Nice.  It  was 
very  empty,  and  I  made  the  acquaintance  there  of,  I 
think,  one  of  the  pleasantest  people  I  have  ever  met  — ■ 
Charles  Lever,  alias  Cornelius  O'Dowd,  who  is  Vice- 
Consul  there  and  stopping  in  the  hotel.  He  is  so 
amiable,  so  modest  about  his  writings,  and  at  the 
same  time  one  of  the  most  charming  talkers  one  could 

»  Mr.  Lea  first  wrote  to  him  every  now  and  then  through 
on  this  occasion,  and  con-  subsequent  years,  but  he  and 
tinued  to  correspond  with  him      Lecky  never  met. 


CHARLES   LEVER  53 

possibly  imagine,  all  sparkling  with  wit,  brimful  of  the 
most  ludicrous  stories,  which  he  tells  to  perfection, 
and  pours  out  with  a  rapidity  that  is  perfectly  bewil- 
dering. He  has  been  for  the  last  forty  years  nearly 
always  abroad,  but  still  the  torrent  of  his  Irish  recol- 
lections and  imaginings  is  inexhaustible.  He  Uves 
at  Florence,  where  he  is  now,  and  where  I  hope  soon 
to  see  him.  He  and  his  daughters  are  most  marvel- 
lous swimmers.  He  says  he  and  they  once  swam 
together  en  grande  famillc  to  a  little  town  in  the  Gulf 
of  Spezzia,  two  and  a  half  hours'  swim  off.  He  was 
once  wrecked  with  one  of  his  daughters  and  a  terrier 
dog  five  miles  out  at  sea,  but  they  managed,  without 
any  difficulty,  to  get  safely  to  the  nearest  ship  and  to 
carry  their  dog  with  them.  Another  literary  person 
I  saw  a  little,  though  not  much  of,  was  Mrs.  Somer- 
ville,  authoress  of  a  number  of  scientific  books.  She 
is,  Mr.  Lever  says,  eighty-six,  and  having  just  com- 
pleted correcting  the  proof-sheets  of  a  book,  the 
thought  seems  to  have  struck  her  that  she  might 
possibly  some  day  die,  so  she  resolved  to  make  her 
will,  which  Mr.  Lever  and  I  had  to  witness.  And  I 
sincerely  hope  we  did  it  right,  which,  considering  that 
all  three  parties  were  literary,  would  be  remarkable. 
The  Miss  Somervilles  complain  that  they  were  once 
all  left  without  money,  because  their  mother  and 
Mr.  Lever  had  both  to  sign  some  cheques,  and  having 
begun  to  talk  of  something  else  they  both  forgot  it, 
and  sent  the  cheque,  unsigned,  to  England;  and  that 
on  another  occasion,  Mr.  Lever  duly  witnessed  a 
signature  which  Mrs.  Somerville  had  never  written. 
By  dint  of  a  long  mountain  walk  every  day  I  got  quite 
strong  again  at  Spezzia.  Pray  stop  at  Rome  until 
the  end  of  the  month.  You  have  nothing  whatever 
to  prevent  it.  I  hope  to  be  there  on  the  21st  or  22nd. 
It  is  really  a  dreadful  nuisance  about  the  brigands  en 
route  and  the  assassins  in  Rome.  Next  year  I  sus- 
pect no  one  will  be  there.     I  want  to  read  and  write 


54  WILLIAM   EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

a  little  more  here  and,  I  think,  at  the  Baths  of  Lucca, 
and  to  spend  a  few  days  at  Florence  (my  address  the 
poste  restante  there),  and  have  not  quite  made  up  my 
mind  how  I  shall  go  down  to  Rome,  by  land  or  sea.' 

*My  book  got  into  the  third  edition,'  he  wrote  from 
Rome  on  April  22.  'The  Times,  as  perhaps  you  saw, 
is  of  opinion  that  one  of  my  principal  objects  was  to 
advocate  woman's  suffrage.  I  am  at  heart  somewhat 
miserable,  partly  through  literary  pains  and  sorrows, 
of  which  you  know  nothing,  partly  because  my  whole 
life  is  darkened  by  the  dreary  conciousness  that  I 
shall  never,  never  succeed  in  getting  lodgings  in  Lon- 
don out  of  the  noise,  and  tolerably  comfortable,  and 
the  awful  prospect  of  the  attempt  I  shall  have  to 
make  is,  at  present,  my  habitual  nightmare.' 

He  wrote  to  his  stepmother  that  he  had  one  unfor- 
tunate monomania  which  put  him  in  great  difficulties: 
'I  must  get  entirely  and  completely  out  of  the  noise 
of  carriages,  for  I  am  perfectly  unable  to  write  except 
in  absolute  silence.  I  rather  want  to  be  in  London 
for  the  sake  of  many  people  I  care  to  know,  and  not 
very  far  from  the  B.  Museum  on  account  of  the  library. 
But  if  I  cannot  escape  the  noise  I  must  go  elsewhere.' 

He  did  not,  however,  intend  to  carry  out  this  plan 
till  the  autumn.  He  stayed  on  in  Rome,  where  he 
had  many  friends,  and  where  he  was  interested  to 
meet,  among  others,  Mr.  WilUam  Palmer,  one  of  the 
early  converts  to  Catholicism  of  the  time  of  Newman, 
and  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of  the  group.  He 
afterwards  went  to  Bagneres. 

Montreux:  August  10.  —  'I  have  been  going  through 
a  six  weeks'  course  of  relations  in  the  Pyrenees,  and 
finally,  wanting  to  get  out  of  noises  &c.,  came  to 
Switzerland  and  have  been  moving  from  hotel  to 
hotel  along  the  Lake  of  Geneva.     At  Vevey,  where  I 


DR.    NEWMAN  55 

was  staying  until  driven  away  by  a  band,  was  no  less 
a  person  than  Dr.  Newman.  .  .  .  Had  I  been  more 
brazen  I  would  have  ventured  to  introduce  myself,  as 
I  happen  to  know  that  he  knows  me  in  my  disembodied 
state, ^  but  I  had  not  courage  —  besides,  he  did  not 
look  engaging,  speaking  to  no  one,  rarely  smiling,  and 
on  the  wliole  looking  very  melancholy  —  a  striking 
face,  though,  with  a  very  large  nose  (bending  about  a 
good  deal  in  different  directions  to  economise  space), 
very  gentlemanly,  .  .  .  and  a  general  look,  till  you 
observed  closely,  of  an  English  clergyman.     He  was 

travelling  with ,  whom,  if  I  remember  rightly,  he 

puffs  immensely  in  the  "Apologia,"  who  had  a  gen- 
eral look  of  being  his  keeper,  beckoning  him  with  his 
eyes  when  to  leave  the  room,  and  who  at  tea  kept  his 
hat  on  and  read  a  book,  leaving  poor  Dr.  N.  very 
sadly  gazing  at  the  bottom  of  his  teacup.  They  were 
only  there,  I  am  happy  to  say,  two  or  three  days,  for 
I  own  it  tantalised  me  exceedingly,  there  being  no 
one  (scarcely  anyone,  indeed)  I  should  so  much  have 
liked  to  know.  However,  I  thought  of  an  Irish  saint  in 
"Colgan's  Acta  Sanctorum  Hiberniffi"  who  whenever 
(poor  lady)  she  was  in  love  used  to  put  her  feet  in  the 
fire  in  order  that  one  fire  might  drive  out  another; 
and  so,  following  her  example,  I  got  Buckle. from  the 
circulating  library  and  always  brought  him  down  to 
tea.  I  have  got  so  many  books  with  me  (nearly  all 
since  I  left  Rome)  that  I  can  scarcely  move  about. 

Lecky  was  not  long  before  he  began  another  book 
on  a  subject  to  which  the  'Rationalism'  had  led  up, 
the  '  History  of  European  Morals  from  Augustus  to 
Charlemagne.' 

The  following  letter,  written  from  Interlaken  at 
this  time  (August  28,  1866),  throws  some  fight  on  his 
methods  of  work: 


'  Lecky  had  been  told  that  Dr.  Newman  had  been  struck 
with  the  Rationalism. 


56  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

'  A  book  requires  endless  patience,  for  I  at  least 
rarely  finish  a  chapter  without  finding  it  necessary 
to  recast  it  thoroughly.  There  are  also  innumerable 
little  difficulties  of  style,  arrangement,  and  research, 
which  no  one  but  an  author  can  know,  and  there 
falls  upon  one  not  infrequently  an  utter  brain  weari- 
ness, a  despondency,  which  is  very  painful.  But  by  long 
patience  something  really  comes  at  the  end.  As  far 
as  my  own  experience  goes,  the  chief  motive  of  writ- 
ing seems  to  be  that  one  has  thought  much,  has  crowds 
of  arguments,  tendencies,  speculations,  &c.,  floating, 
often  half  formed,  through  the  mind,  which  it  at  last 
becomes  almost  necessary  to  rescue  from  a  subjective 
to  an  objective  state.  To  develop  one's  being  to  its 
full  capacity  is,  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  the  least  vain 
thing  in  this  vain  world.' 

And  in  a  letter  written  some  time  after  he  says: 
'  Good  writing  is  a  very  much  harder  thing  than  people 
who  have  never  tried  it  imagine,  and,  as  far  as  my 
experience  goes,  it  is  only  attained  by  incessant 
cobbling,  by  retrenching,  condensing,  and  recasting 
again  and  again  what  one  has  written.' 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  '  Religious  Tendencies ' 
which  shows  that  from  early  times  he  had  a  high  ideal 
of  literary  workmanship.  Speaking  of  the  passion 
of  ambition  in  its  loftiest  sense  and  of  its  various 
outlets,  he  says: 

'Inspired  by  this  passion,  the  orator  or  the  writer 
abandons  the  lucrative  paths  of  mediocrity  to  develop, 
amidst  the  discouragement  of  friends  and  the  sneers 
of  hostile  critics,  his  pecuUar  talent,  dedicating  all 
his  time  and  sacrificing  all  his  pleasures  to  the  attain- 
ment of  this  object,  moulding  and  clarifying  his  sen- 
tences till  he  has  made  them  nervous,  flexible,  and 
melodious,  capable  of  conveying  the  most  delicate  mod- 
ulations of  his  thoughts  —  a  faithful  mirror  of  his  mind.' 


LITERARY   STYLE  57 

Being  once  asked  a  question  on  the  subject,  he 
wrote: 

*I  have  always  cared  much  for  style,  and  have 
endeavoured  to  impi-ove  my  own  by  reatling  a  great 
deal  of  tlie  best  English  and  French  prose.  In  writ- 
ing, as  in  music,  much  of  the  perfection  of  style  is  a 
question  of  ear;  but  much  also  depends  on  the  ideal 
the  writer  sets  before  himself.  He  ought,  I  think,  to 
aim  at  the  greatest  possible  simplicity  and  accuracy 
of  expression,  at  vividness  and  force,  at  condensation. 
The  last  two  heads  will  usually  be  found  to  blend;  for 
condensation,  when  it  is  not  attained  at  the  sacrifice  of 
clearness,  is  the  great  secret  of  force.  I  should  say, 
from  my  own  experience,  that  most  improvements  of 
style  are  of  the  nature  either  of  condensation  or  of 
increased  accuracy  and  delicacy  of  distinction.' 

He  objected  to  the  dryasdust  method  of  some  his- 
torians, who  on  principle  exclude  the  picturesque 
from  historic  writing,  but  he  still  more  objected  to 
the  tendency  to  be  picturesque  at  the  expense  of 
truth.  In  a  copy  of  an  earlj^  edition  of  the  '  Rational- 
ism' in  his  Ubrary  the  following  lines  were  written  by 
him  on  the  title  page: 

*  Spirit  of  truth !  still  further  urge  thy  sway, 
Still  further  brighten  our  imperfect  day; 
From  every  other  shackle  set  us  free, 
From  every  bond  that  is  not  knit  by  thee.' 

—  Madan. 


CHAPTER   III 

1867-1870. 

Settles    in    London  —  Lord    Russell  —  Elected    to    Athenaeum 
Club  — Mr.   Gladstone  —  Reform   Bill   of   1867  —  Bagneres 

—  Lord  Camwath's  death  —  Lecture  at  the  Royal  Institution 

—  Irish  Church  Disestablishment  —  Publication  of  the  '  His- 
tory of  European  Morals  '  —  Reviews —  Irish  Church  Bill  — 
Grand  Jury  in  Queen's  County  —  Third  visit  to  Spain  — 
Lord  Morris  —  Rome  —  CEcumenical  Council  —  San  Remo 

—  Irish  Land  Bill. 

In  the  beginning  of  October  1866  Lecky  took  cham- 
bers at  6  Albemarle  Street,  which  were  sufficiently 
quiet,  as  they  did  not  look  on  the  street,  and  he  found 
it  convenient  to  house  his  many  books;  but  he  was  a 
good  deal  away  himself.  He  went  to  the  north  of 
Italy  for  part  of  the  winter,  and  on  his  return  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  Booth  (May  2,  1867) : 

'  I  got  back  here  somewhat  refreshed  by  a  three 
months'  dose  of  perfect  solitude,  and  am  falling  into 
my  usual  ways.  The  Athenaeum,  I  find,  has,  during 
my  absence,  been  good  enough  to  elect  me  a  member. 
I  have  seen  scarcely  anyone  except  Dean  Milman  and 
Lord  Russell,  who  has  been  good  enough  to  want  to 
know  me  and  whom  I  met  last  night  at  Dean  Mil- 
man's,  who  kindly  made  up  a  little  party  to  bring  us 
together.' 

This  meeting  was  the  beginning  of  a  friendship  which 
only  ended  with  Lord  Russell's  death,  and  which  was 
continued  to  his  children.  In  the  '  Life '  of  Lord 
Russell  by  Stuart  Reid,  Lecky  gives  an  appreciation  of 

58 


THE  REFORM   BILL  OF   1867  59 

Lord  Russell's  character  which  testifies  to  the  regard  he 
felt  for  him  and  the  relations  that  existed  between  them. 
About  the  same  time  he  made,  through  Dean  Mil- 
man,  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  whom  he 
admired  in  those  days  more  than  any  other  Uving 
statesman,  and  wliom  he  now  frequently  saw.  The 
Government  of  Disraeli  had  astonished  the  world  by 
bringing  in  and  carrying  a  Reform  Bill  which  went 
much  further  than  the  Bill  their  own  party  had  thrown 
out  the  previous  year.  Writing  to  his  cousin,  Mr. 
Charles  Bowen,  Lecky  denounced  the  volte  face  in  his 
own  vigorous  way.  Mr.  Charles  Hartpole  Bowen,  of 
Kilnacourt,  Portarhngton,  though  belonging  to  an 
older  generation  than  himself,*  had  been  from  early 
years  a  great  friend  of  his.  He  was  an  Irish  landlord,  a 
man  of  literary  tastes,  and  a  strong  Tory.  Lecky  had 
always  been  a  Liberal,  but  never  '  a  Radical,'  as  he 
said  on  this  occasion,  'like  Mr,  Bright  or  Mr.  Disraeh.' 

6  Albemarle  Street:  June  11,  1867.  —  'The  last  Gov- 
ernment were,  I  think,  perfectly  right  in  insisting  upon 
a  Reform  iBill.  The  great  desideratum  is  a  legisla- 
tive assembly  which  adequately  represents  and  gives 
a  legitimate  vent  to  all  the  forms  of  public  opinion 
that  exist  in  the  country.  Since  1832  the  immense 
growth  of  manufactures,  the  extension  of  education 
among  the  working  classes,  the  formation  of  mechanics' 
institutes,  &c.,  had  all  created  a  strong  public  opinion 
among  the  skilled  artificers  which  was  not  represented, 
or  at  least  adequately  represented,  in  Parliament. 
Considering  Parliament  as  a  representative  body, 
Mr.    Gladstone   was   perfectly   right    in    agitating   to 


1  His   mother  was  Miss   M.       He   married   Miss  Cooper,   of 
Hartpole,  sister  of  Mr.  Lecky's      Marcrea. 
grandmother.     See  ante,  p.  3. 


60  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

have  this  defect  remedied.  Considering  it  as  a  legis- 
lative body  he  was  not  less  right,  for  the  distinctive 
quality  of  the  skilled  artificer  class  is  an  energy  and  a 
generosity  of  spirit  in  reforming  old  abuses,  and  the 
greatest  fault  of  the  present  ParUament  is  the  marked 
decadence  of  this  spirit  which  it  has  of  late  years 
manifested  —  its  systematic  adjournment  of  great 
questions,  its  eminently  hand-to-mouth  policy.  This 
being  the  case,  Mr.  Gladstone  brought  in  a  Bill  which, 
if  it  be  judged  by  the  true  poUtical  tests  —  its  suit- 
ability to  remedy  an  existing  evil  and  its  adaptation 
to  the  existing  state  of  public  opinion  — -  was,  I  think, 
as  nearly  a  perfectly  wise  measure  as  any  that  could  be 
conceived.  Your  Tory  friends  threw  it  out  chiefly 
on  the  ground  that  to  depress  the  suffrage  as  far  as 
the  £7  hne,  to  admit  about  350,000  more  electors, 
would  be  to  give  up  the  country  to  a  torrent  of  democ- 
racy. They  made  Lowe  their  chief  representative; 
they  cheered  him  to  the  very  echo  when  he  pronounced 
against  all  depression  of  the  suffrage,  and  they  won 
the  day.  Now  the  Bill  of  the  last  Government  would 
have  been  accepted  by  the  people  as  settUng  the  ques- 
tion for  many  years.  After  the  agitation  caused  by 
its  rejection  it  was,  of  course,  necessary  to  pass  a  Bill 
somewhat  larger;  but  a  Liberal  Government  trusted 
by  the  people  could  have  settled  the  question  with  a 
moderate  Bill  —  probably  with  a  £6  or  £5  line.  The 
Tories,  however,  through  the  simple  desire  of  place 
and  by  an  act  of  political  dishonesty  which  I  believe 
to  be  about  the  most  glaring  in  Parliamentary  his- 
tory .  .  .  determined  to  outbid  the  Radicals.  Hav- 
ing one  year  declared  that  the  Constitution  would  be 
subverted  by  a  £7  hne,  they  brought  in  household 
suffrage;  having  declared  that  to  add  one  third  to  the 
constituency  would  be  to  swamp  it,  they  have  far 
more  than  doubled  it,  leaving  the  world  at  a  loss 
which  to  wonder  at  most  —  the  consummate  skill  of 
the  political who  has  managed  the  apostasy,  or 


POLITICAL    VIEWS  61 

the  unheard-of,  prodigious,  almost  supernatural  stupid- 
ity of  tlie  really  conservative  members  of  the  party 
who  have  managed  to  persuade  tliemselves  that  their 
present  conduct  is  anything  but  the  utter  abandon- 
ment of  their  past  principles.  Liberals  usually  canvass 
measures.  Tories  follow  men,  and  this  is  doubt- 
less with  the  majority  the  explanation  of  the  phenom- 
enon. .  .  .  Bright  himself,  as  well  as  nearly  all  the 
genuine  Liberals,  except  Sir  Roundell  Palmer,  con- 
sider the  Bill  too  democratic.  Some  Radicals,  how- 
ever, I  meet,  such  as  Mr.  Stansfeld,  and  Mr.Hughes 
(both  very  extreme  men),  think  it  just  right.  My  one 
consolation  is  that  it  gives  a  better  chance  to  a  fa- 
vourite idea  of  mine,  the  representation  of  minorities, 
either  by  cumulative  or  distributive  voting.' 

He  wished  at  that  time  very  much  to  get  into  Par- 
liament at  the  next  dissolution,  finding  it  'very,  very 
tantalising  to  look  at  the  House  from  a  gallery,'  but 
'unfortunately,'  he  wrote,  'I  know  no  Irish  Liberals, 
have  not  the  gift  of  pushing,  and  fear  there  is  there- 
fore no  chance.  If  I  went  in  it  should  be  as  a  Liberal, 
not  as  a  Tory  or  a  Radical  (the  two  just  at  present 
seem  almost  convertible  terms).'  'With  my  usual 
great  moderation  of  temper,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bowen 
in  a  subsequent  letter,  '  I  have  always  kept  equidistant 
from  the  two  extremes  of  Toryism  and  Radicahsm 
which  those  hybrid  Tory-Radical  monsters  now  in 
power  alternately  adopt.'. 

Though  time  soothed  the  vehement  sentiments  of 
the  hour,  and  though  Lecky  afterwards  supported  a 
Conservative  Government,  he  always  maintained  that 
'few  pages  in  our  modern  political  history  are  more 
discreditable  than  the  story  of  the  "Conservative" 
Reform  Bill  of  1867.'  ' 


»  Democracy  and  Liberty,  cabinet  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  154. 


62  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Part  of  the  winter  of  1867  was  spent  with  his  rela- 
tions at  Bagneres  de  Bigorre,  whence  he  writes, 
December  4:  'Of  late  I  have  been  working  very  hard, 
much  too  hard  to  be  pleasant.  As  far  as  my  experi- 
ence goes,  I  can  always  write  very  well  on  any  subject 
when  I  care  so  much  about  it  that  the  tears  come  into 
my  eyes  when  I  think  about  it.' 

Lord  Carnwath,  who  had  been  long  aihng,  died  on 
December  14,  and  Lecky  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth: 

Bagneres:  Xmas  Day,  1867.  — '  I  have  been  having 
a  very  melancholy  visit  here,  having  been  sitting  by 
the  deathbed  of  my  stepfather.  Lord  Carnwath,  for 
whom  I  cared  much,  and  who  was  buried  on  Thurs- 
day. What  a  dreadful  thing  is,  not  death,  but  dying, 
even  in  the  case  of  an  old  man  with  perfectly  tranquil 
mind,  surrounded  by  friends  and  not  actually  in  pain. 
Those  long  days  and  nights,  when  every  breath  is  a 
gasp  and  a  struggle,  are  a  very  dreary  ending  to  Hfe. 
Naturally  our  Christmas  is  by  no  means  as  cheerful 
as  I  hope  yours  is.' 

In  the  same  letter  he  speaks  of  a  request  that  had 
been  made  to  him  to  lecture  at  the  Royal  Institution: 

'I  have  been  advertised  to  lecture  for  the  Royal 
Institution  in  the  spring.  I  hate  the  idea  of  it,  but 
I  suppose  it  must  be  done.  Speaking,  when  you  have 
long  given  it  up,  is  very  hard  to  renew,  and  dead-level 
speaking  for  a  whole  hour  is  a  dreadful  nuisance.' 

He  returned  to  London  in  March,  and  wrote  from 
Albemarle  Street: 

'I  stopped  a  few  days  in  Paris  and  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Scherer,  whom  I  hked.  Have  been 
here  four  or  five  days;  am  not  very  well  —  overworked 


IN   LONDON  63 

and  dismal.  Gladstone  has  been  writing  a  tract  or 
review  on  "  Ecce  Homo  "  and  an  essay  on  Phoenicia  in 
the  Quarterly.  .  .  .  The  last  Bampton  Lecturer  has, 
I  find,  been  writing  a  quantity  of  nonsense  about  me, 

as  has  Mr. ,  the  Ritualistic  writer.     I  mean  to  be 

here  three  or  four  months,  and  hope  by  general  cut- 
ting down  and  mutilating  to  finish  my  book  by  Novem- 
ber and  then  throw  aside  literature.  I  have  no  belief 
in  my  future,  and  all  the  intellectual  and  political 
enthusiasm  I  ever  had  is  extinct,  the  latter  for  want 
of  any  sphere  for  its  development.  ...  I  am  very 
glad  Arbuthnot  is  going  to  be  married,  the  life  of  a 
bachelor  being  always  a  condition  of  ultimate  misery. 
...  I  think  I  appreciate  the  calm  of  great  moun- 
tains above  all  things,  especially  here  in  London, 
where  one  grows  so  jaded  and  overwrought.' 

Albemarle  Street:  April  1,  1868.  — *I  am  very  sorry 
to  say  your  fears  are  quite  unfounded.  I  have  been 
solely  occupied  with  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes,  and  you 
know  how  far  that  is  from  the  Song  of  Solomon.  I 
have  been  seeing  a  variety  of  members  of  Parliament, 
newspaper  writers,  &c.  I  have  also  taken  lately  to 
very  long  walks  with  Carlyle,  who,  the  last  time  I  saw 
him,  described  very  justly  your  divine  Comte  as  "the 
ghastliest  algebraic  factor  that  ever  was  taken  for  a 
man."  ^  I  have  been  reading  a  great  deal  and  writ- 
ing a  considerable  amount.  .  .  .' 


1  This  was,   of  course,   not  lessly      diffuse,      monotonous 

Lecky's    deliberate    judgment  style  that  his  books  are  nearly 

about  Comte,  as  the  following  unreadable,    and    this,    com- 

passage  from  a  letter  written  bined  with  his  extreme  arro- 

from  Rome  in  May  1864  to  his  gance   and    the   absurdity   of 

friend  Mr.   K.  Chetwode  will  the    "religion    of    humanity" 

show:  'The  position  of  Comte  (which  Littre  has  long  since 

in  literature  is  extremely  curi-  given  up),  has  almost  entirely 

ous.     He  wrote  in  such  a  hope-  kept  him  out  of  the  knowledge 


64 


WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 


His  lecture  '  On  the  Influence  of  the  Imagination  on 
History '  came  off  on  May  29,  Sir  Henry  Holland  in 
the  chair;  but  it  did  not  come  up  to  his  ideal,  and  he 
was  not  pleased  with  it.  The  atmosphere  was  over- 
powering in  a  crowded  room  on  the  night  of  a  thunder- 


of  the  general  reading  public; 
yet  his  very  small  band  of 
followers  comprises  some  of  the 
ablest  men  of  the  age,  and  his 
suggestions  have  acted  more 
extensively  than  perhaps  those 
of  any  other  author  on  almost 
all  fields  of  philosophy.  J.  S. 
Mill,  who  is  never  weary  of 
eulogising  him,  pronounced 
his  positive  philosophy  to  be 
the  ablest  of  all  histories  of 
science.  Buckle  called  him 
the  greatest  philosopher  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  speaks 
of  Bacon,  Descartes,  and 
Comte.  Lewes,  after  spend- 
ing a  life  diving  into  German 
philosophy,  declared  that  he 
owes  to  Comte  the  first  sense 
of  finality  and  repose  he  had 
experienced.  Littr^,  who  is 
a  scholar  of  immense  attain- 
ments, and  one  of  the  first 
philologists  in  Europe,  declares 
that  for  years  he  has  never  pur- 
sued a  subject  of  study  with- 
out systematising  it  according 
to  the  principles  of  Comte. 
The  two  points  on  which  the 
disciples  of  the  school  most 
insist  are  the  law  of  the  three 


stages  and  the  hierarchy  of 
sciences  —  the  way  in  which 
each  department  of  knowledge 
depends  upon  and  is  evolved 
from  some  previously  mas- 
tered department.  The  grand 
resultant  of  the  work  of  Comte 
is  that  he  has  done  more  than 
any  previous  writer  to  show 
that  the  speculative  opinions 
of  any  age  are  phenomena 
resulting  from  the  totality  of 
the  intellectual  influences  of 
that  age  —  in  other  words, 
that,  looking  upon  the  opin- 
ions of  large  masses  of  men, 
there  must  always  be  a  unity 
of  character  subsisting  in  all 
parts  of  their  knowledge;  that 
what  they  believe  results  from 
their  predisposition  to  believe 
it;  that  this  is  governed  by 
their  measure  of  probability, 
which  itself  is  derived  from 
the  analogy  of  other  parts  of 
their  knowledge;  so  that  when 
science  has  fundamentally 
altered  men's  conceptions  of 
one  department  (say  of  the 
government  of  the  material  uni- 
verse) the  effects  of  this  change 
will  vibrate  through  all.  .  .  .f 


IRISH   CHURCH   DISESTABLISHMENT  65 

storm,  and  he  was  mortified  at  finding  that  the  silence 
of  many  years  had  a  good  deal  diminished  his  old 
readiness,  fluency,  and  fire;  but  his  audience  evidently 
did  not  think  so,  for  he  received  the  most  emphatic 
congratulations  about  it. 

The  proposed  disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church 
was  then  the  question  of  the  hour,^  and  Lecky  saw 
all  the  dangers  of  a  long  Parliamentary  conflict  on 
the  subject.  He  believed  that  since  the  tithes  had 
been  commuted  in  Ireland  there  was  Httle  or  no  feel- 
ing against  the  Protestant  Establishment,  but  that 
as  the  question  had  been  brought  before  the  country 
it  was  desirable  to  settle  it  speedily. 

'  If  the  conduct  of  the  Parliament  just  after  the  '32 
Reform  Bill  be  any  guide,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bo  wen 
(6  Albemarle  Street,  June  12,  1868),  'there  will  prob- 
ably be  some  very  energetic  legislation  in  the  first 
few  years  of  the  new  constituencies;  and  if  the  Tories 
succeed  in  making  a  long  fight  about  the  Irish  Church, 
if  they  insist  upon  identifying  it  with  the  English 
Church  and  on  making  the  House  of  Lords  its  cham- 
pion in  opposition  to  the  House  of  Commons,  I  fear 


1  As  early  as  November  merit  will  certainly  pass  some 
1865  he  had  written  to  Mr.  conciliatory  legislation  about 
Bowen:  'One  thing  I  think  is  Ireland,  and  the  great  loy- 
tolerably  certain.  A  Glad-  alty  the  Catholic  priests  have 
stonian  Ministry  and  a  shown  will  have  its  reward, 
reformed  Parliament  will  Nothing  to  my  mind  can  be 
assuredly  take  up  the  Irish  more  evident  than  that  pub- 
Church  question,  and  this,  lie  opinion  in  England  has  been 
which  imder  any  circum-  tending  steadily  in  this  direc- 
Btances  would  come  to  pass,  tion  for  some  time  past,  and 
will  be  rendered  doubly  sure  has  now  all  but  acquired  the 
by  Fenianism.  When  the  necessary  force.' 
trials  are  over  the  Govern- 
6 


66  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

a  very  revolutionary  spirit  may  get  up  in  opposition 
to  tiie  English  Establishment  and  the  House  of  Lords. 
I  don't  think  politicians  quite  appreciate  that  these 
kinds  of  movements  go  with  accelerated  rapidity  and 
that  the  past  rate  of  progress  is  no  measure  of  the 
future  rate.  However,  if  the  Irish  Church  is  quickly 
and  easily  abolished,  and  if  a  moderate  Liberal  Gov- 
ernment presides  over  the  first  few  years  of  the  new 
constituencies,  all  will,  I  dare  say,  get  quiet.' 

'  I  can  quite  understand,'  he  wrote  to  the  same 
correspondent  (6  Albemarle  Street,  June  25),  'people 
thinking  it  impolitic  to  have  raised  the  question  of 
the  Establishment;  but  now  that  it  is  definitely  raised, 
that  it  is  certain  it  never  can  be  at  rest  again,  and  that 
public  opinion  in  England  unmistakably  shows  that 
only  one  solution  is  ultimately  possible,  I  cannot 
understand  sensible  people  who  object  in  general  to 
organic  changes  not  wishing  this  one  to  be  effected  as 
quickly  as  possible.  A  long  agitation  means  the 
revival  of  all  sectarian  bitterness  in  Ireland,  the 
immense  strengthening  of  the  pure  voluntaries  in  Eng- 
land, and  a  contest  between  the  people  and  the  House 
of  Lords  which,  with  new  constituencies  and  many 
revolutionary  ideas  in  the  air,  is  more  likely  than  any- 
thing else  to  precipitate  England  into  pure  democracy. 
I  am  not  a  Radical  (except  on  matters  of  education, 
which  I  think  in  England  are  fundamentally  wrong), 
and  just  for  that  reason  I  hope  the  disestablishment 
of  the  Irish  Church  will  be  rapidly  and  easily  effected. 
There  is  not  the  smallest  chance  of  my  ever  getting 
into  Parliament.  I  have  no  influence,  no  pushing 
faculty,  no  popular  opinions,  and  very  little  money.' 

His  mind  was  now  concentrated  on  his  book,  which 
he  wished  to  finish  by  the  end  of  the  year;  and  after 
some  months  in  Albemarle  Street  he  went  into  Devon- 
shire —  not,  indeed,  to  take  a  holiday,  but  to  find 
greater  soUtude  than  he  could  secure  at  home.     On 


THE    'HISTORY    OF    EUROPEAN    MORALS'  67 

his  return  to  London  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  (Novem- 
ber 5) : 

'  I  have  been  since  I  saw  you  going  a  vast  deal  about 
England,  among  other  places  to  Lyme  Regis,  Exeter, 
Ilfracombe,  Lynton,  Dulverton,  Torquay,  Plymouth, 
Penzance,  Bournemouth,  Clifton,  Ely,  Lincoln,  Mat- 
lock, Sahsbury.  Being  a  great  deal  alone,  I  have 
been  very  busy,  and  have  also  had  a  good  deal  of 
walking,  which  I  always  enjoy  much  except  in  Lon- 
don (a  remark  which  I  made  to  Carlyle  when  last  I 
saw  him,  bringing  down  upon  myself  the  snub,  "  Why, 
there's  nowhere  in  the  world  that  you  can  get  such 
walking  as  in  London  —  fifty  miles  of  broad,  well- 
lighted  pavement").  I  am  extremely  busy,  having 
hardly  time  for  anything,  and  carefully  avoid  all 
human  beings.' 

He  remained  the  winter  in  London,  working  hard 
at  proof-sheets.  On  the  last  day  of  the  year  1868 
he  wrote  in  his  'Commonplace  Book':  'The  prayer 
of  the  Breton  sailors:  "  Mon  Dieu,  mon  Dieu,  aidez- 
moi;  car  la  mer  est  si  grande  et  ma  barque  est  si 
petite!"  The  sea  of  thought,  the  sea  of  literature, 
the  sea  of  life,  the  sea  of  death ' 

The  '  History  of  European  Morals  from  Augustus  to 
Charlemagne  '  appeared  in  the  spring  of  1869.  It  made 
no  less  a  mark  than  its  predecessor,  and  was  widely 
read,  discussed,  and  reviewed  at  home  and  abroad. 
Students  of  philosophy  who  were  opposed  to  the  Utili- 
tarian principles  spoke  in  the  most  appreciative  terms 
of  his  exposition  of  the  intuitive  theory  of  morals. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  book  was  violently  attacked 
by  the  Utilitarians,  who  maintained  that  in  the  first 
chapter  justice  had  not  been  done  to  their  position; 
and  it  also  met  with  criticisms  from  the  orthodox 
side.      '  The   chief   meaning   of   fame/   was   Carlyle's 


68  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

characteristic  remark  on  the  occasion,  'seems  to  be 
that  you  have  all  the  owls  of  the  community  beating 
at  your  windows';  and  Lecky  writes  to  Mr.  Booth: 
'The  agreement  of  the  most  opposite  English  parties 
in  abusing  me  is  quite  touching';  and  subsequently, 
speaking  of  one  of  these  attacks,  he  says:  'I  could 
easily  point  out  many  gross  misrepresentations,  but 
have  no  doubt  the  readers  who  will  never  take  the 
trouble  of  comparing  it  with  the  original  will  think  it 
very  triumphant.' 

Lord  Tennyson's  comment  on  the  book  was:  'It  is 
a  wonderful  book  for  a  young  man  to  have  written, 
a  great  book  for  any  man  to  have  written,  and  proves 
that  he  has  genius,  true  genius.' 

Mr.  Lea,  whose  studies  lay  more  or  less  in  the  same 
direction  as  Lecky 's,  wrote  from  Philadelphia:  'I 
have  just  finished  your  "  History  of  Morals,"  and  hasten 
to  thank  you  for  the  very  great  pleasure  which  I  have 
derived  from  it.  It  is  a  brilliant  book,  which  for 
acuteness  of  thought  and  range  of  material  is  not 
readily  to  be  paralleled  in  our  literature.' 

In  London  society,  where  there  is  always  a  dominant 
sensation,  philosophic  controversy  became  the  passion 
of  the  hour,  and,  according  to  an  amusing  description 
in  the  Saturday  Review,  philosophical  discussions  were 
going  on  at  every  dinner-table  between  intuitional 
young  ladies  and  utilitarian  young  gentlemen. 

In  a  letter  written  some  time  afterwards  (July  30, 
1870)  to  a  foreign  friend  Lecky  explains  the  thread  of 
purpose  running  through  this  book  and  the  '  History 
of  Rationalism:' 

'The  two  books  are  closely  connected.  They  are 
an  attempt  to  examine  the  merits  of  certain  theolog- 
ical opinions   according  to  the  historical   method  — • 


THE   'history   of   EUROPEAN    MORALS '  69 

that  is,  by  examining  the  causes  that  produced  and 
favoured  them  and  the  degrees  and  waj^s  in  whicli 
they  benefited  or  injured  mankind.  "The  Morals" 
is  a  history  of  the  imposition  of  those  opinions  upon 
the  world,  and  attempts  to  show  how  far  their  success 
may  be  accounted  for  by  natural  causes,  how  far  they 
were  connected  with  pre-existing  opinions,  and  in 
what  respects  they  were  an  improvement  on  pre- 
existing behefs.  The  "RationaUsm"  is  a  history  of 
the  decay  of  those  opinions,  an  examination  of  the 
causes  of  that  decay  and  of  the  manner  in  which  it 
has  affected  the  happiness  of  man.  Both  books  belong 
to  a  very  small  school  of  historical  writings  which 
began  in  the  seventeenth  century  with  Vico,  was 
continued  by  Condorcet,  Herder,  Hegel,  and  Comte, 
and  which  found  its  last  great  representative  in  Mr. 
Buckle  (from  many  of  whose  opinions  I  widely  differ, 
but  from  whom  I  have  learnt  very  much) .  What  charac- 
terises these  writers  is  that  they  try  to  look  at  history, 
not  as  a  series  of  biographies,  or  accidents,  or  pic- 
tures, but  as  a  great  organic  whole;  that  they  consider 
the  social  and  intellectual  condition  of  the  world  at 
any  given  period  a  problem  to  be  explained,  the  net 
result  of  innumerable  influences  which  it  is  the  busi- 
ness of  the  historian  to  trace;  and  that  they  especially 
beUeve  that  intellectual  belief  has  not  been  due  merely 
to  arguments  or  other  intellectual  causes,  but  has 
been  very  profoundly  modified  in  many  curious  ways 
by  social,  political,  and  industrial  influences.  I  have 
also  in  my  last  book  given  a  good  deal  of  attention  to 
the  question  of  moral  philosophy.  I  did  so  because 
I  detest  the  dominant  school  among  what  are  called 
''advanced  thinkers"  in  England;  because  I  thought 
that  in  trying  to  write  what  I  believe  had  never  been 
written  before  — ■  a  history  of  morals  —  it  was  neces- 
sary to  have  some  clear  idea  of  what  morals  were; 
and  also  because  two  very  eminent  Utihtarians  had 
laid  down  positions  that  lay  directly  in  my  way.     Mr. 


70  WILLIAM  EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Buckle  said  that  moral  ideas  have  been  always  the 
same,  and  that  there  therefore  can  by  no  possibility 
be  a  history  of  morals.  Mr.  Mill  said  that  there  is  a 
history  or  progress  in  morals,  but  only  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  moral  ideas  came  from  the  experience  of 
the  tendency  of  actions  and  not  from  an  original 
faculty.  ...  I  thought  if  you  cared  to  understand 
what  I  had  written  that  this  might  help  you  to  have 
an  authentic  clue  to  my  general  purposes.' 

Lecky  was  by  nature  and  by  conviction  an  intuitive 
philosopher;  the  belief  in  an  original  moral  faculty 
was  the  keynote  of  his  life,  but  he  did  not  accept  the 
principle  without  rigorously  testing  it  by  the  experi- 
mental method.  'The  basis  of  morals,'  he  says,  'is 
a  distinct  question  from  the  basis  of  theories  of  morals. 
Those  who  maintain  the  existence  of  a  moral  faculty 
do  not,  as  is  sometimes  said,  assume  this  proposition 
as  a  first  principle  of  their  arguments,  but  they  arrive 
at  it  by  a  process  of  induction  quite  as  severe  as  any 
that  can  be  employed  by  their  opponents.'  ^ 

'  The  History  of  Morals '  made  steady  progress.  The 
first  edition  of  1,500  copies  was  very  soon  exhausted, 
and  a  second  edition  came  out  on  June  1.  The  third 
edition  was  carefully  revised,  and  Lecky  explains  in 
a  short  preface  that  in  the  first  chapter  four  or  five 
lines  have  been  omitted  and  three  or  four  short  passages 
inserted,  elucidating  or  supporting  positions  which 
had  been  misunderstood  or  contested.  The  book  has 
been  translated  into  several  languages,  and  within 
the  last  years  of  his  life  a  request  came  to  him  from 
Mr.  Hirst,  Principal  of  Gujarat  College,  Ahmedabad, 
that  the  first  chapter  might  be  reprinted  separately 

'  History  of  European  Morals  from  Augustus  to  Charlemagne, 
cabinet  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  74. 


THE    'history   of   EUROPEAN    MORALS*  71 

for  the  use  of  students  in  India  as  being  the  best  expo- 
sition of  the  prevailing  systems  of  pliilosopliy.  This 
came  out  in  1903  under  the  title  of  *  A  Survey  of  Eng- 
hsh  Ethics';  and  it  has  also  been  used  as  a  text-book 
in  England. 

Of  all  the  books  he  had  written  Lecky  had  more  or 
less  of  a  predilection  for  the  'History  of  Morals.' 
When  the  book  was  finished  he  was  glad,  however, 
to  turn  to  purely  secular  subjects,  though  requests 
came  to  him  at  different  times  to  continue  the  his- 
tory through  the  subsequent  centuries.  Dean  Stan- 
ley was  anxious  that  he  should  fill  up  the  gap  between 
Charlemagne  and  Luther. 

'  Being  exceedingly  tired  of  morals,'  he  wrote,  Jan- 
uary 15,  1869,  to  Mr.  E.  Wilmot  Chetwode,^  while  he 
was  correcting  the  proof-sheets,  '  I  mean  to  leave 
them  for  ever  with  Charlemagne.  Besides,  my  way 
of  treating  them  applies  a  good  deal  to  all  periods  — 
e.g.  1  have  written  a  very  long  chapter  on  the  nature 
of  women,  who  are  a  permanent  perturbing  element.' 

After  the  completion  of  the  '  History  of  Morals ' 
Lecky  suffered  very  much  from  overwork,  as  the  letters 
of  that  time  show.  He  had  for  many  years  lived  too 
exclusively  through  the  intellect,  without  giving  him- 
self the  necessary  holidays  or  without  even  the  whole- 
some relaxation  of  outdoor  games  or  a  sufficient  amount 
of  social  intercourse. 

He  had  done  more  brainwork  than  most  people  at 
his  age.  While  Gibbon  only  published  the  first  vol- 
ume of  his  history  in  his  thirty-ninth  year  and  Buckle 
the  first  of  his  in  his  thirty-fifth,  he,  at  the  age  of  thirty, 
had  written  two  works  of  great  research  which  estab- 
lished his  reputation.     His  task  had  been  a  strenu- 

1  The  father  of  his  friend  Knightley. 


72  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

ous  one  and  had  required  no  little  courage,  for  it  was  the 
misfortune  of  those  who  like  himself  held  what  in  those 
days  were  very  unpopular  opinions  that  in  pursuing  a 
course  which  they  beUeved  to  be  a  duty,  and  often  a 
painful  duty,^  they  risked  alienating  many  sympathies. 
Soon  after  the  '  History  of  Morals '  had  come  out  he 
went  for  a  few  days'  rest  to  Arundel,  a  very  favourite 
resort  of  his.     He  wrote  from  there  to  Mr.  Snagge: 

April  17,  1869.  — 'Do  you  know  this  place?  I  am 
very  fond  of  it,  and  am  given  to  coming  here  when  I 
want  a  few  days'  perfect  quiet  and  solitude.  The 
Duke  of  Norfolk's  park,  which  is  very  large  and 
beautiful,  is  always  open,  and  beyond  it  there  are 
miles  and  miles  of  beautifully  wooded  down.  It  is 
quite  out  of  the  beat  of  tourists,  and  I  believe  I  am 
looked  upon  as  quite  a  phenomenon  for  staying  here. 
Thanks  for  what  you  say  about  my  book.  Perhaps 
it  is  rather  soon  for  congratulations.  My  perform- 
ance must  clash  in  so  many  different  ways  with  the 
opinion  and  feelings  of  so  many  different  classes,  and 
it  deals  with  so  many  such  difficult  and  sometimes 
such  delicate  subjects,  that  it  will  doubtless  arouse  a 
good  deal  of  indignation  in  various  quarters.  It  has 
cost  me  extremely  hard  work  for  nearly  four  years, 
and  it  is  very  improbable  that  I  shall  ever  again  write 
a  book  of  such  magnitude  and  research,  so  at  least  it 
at  present  seems  to  me.  After  a  long  book  of  the  kind 
there  comes  a  melancholy  collapse,  and  it  is  humiliat- 
ing to  think  how  large  a  proportion  of  the  ideas  and 
knowledge  acquired  in  many  years  may  be  condensed 
into  a  few  volumes.' 

He  now  went  carefully  over  the  'Rationalism'  for 
the    stereotyped    edition  —  the    fourth  —  which    was 

I'The    path    of    truth,'    he      corpses  of  the  enthusiasms  of 
wrote  in  a  Commonplace  Book      our  past.' 
as  early  as  1862,  'is  over  the 


IRISH   CHURCH    BILL  73 

soon  to  appear,  and  he  was  much  gratified  with  the 
warm  appreciation  the  book  found  in  Germany. 
There  was  a  demand  for  a  Hungarian  translation;  and 
the  German  translation  of  the  '  History  of  Morals '  had 
been  undertaken  by  Dr.  Jolowicz,  the  translator  of 
the  '  Rationalism.' 

Meanwhile  Lecky's  interest  in  politics  was  as  keen 
as  ever.  Parliament  had  been  dissolved  the  previous 
year  on  the  Irish  Church  DisestabUshment  question, 
and  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been  returned  with  a  mandate 
from  the  country  to  carry  out  his  plan.  On  March  1 
the  Bill  was  brought  in,  and  Lecky  closely  followed  it 
through  its  various  stages. 

'Few  things  have  struck  me  more,'  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Charles  Bowen,  March  15,  1869,  'than  the  extreme 
admiration  I  have  heard  expressed  for  it  by  some  who 
were  strongly  predisposed  against  Gladstone  and  who 
thought  it  a  complete  blunder  to  raise  the  question. 
They  say  that  the  comprehensiveness  and  the  finality 
of  the  Bill  settling  so  large  and  complicated  a  matter 
is  almost  unparalleled  —  that  all  Gladstone's  oppo- 
nents counted  upon  his  falling  into  numerous  pitfalls 
in  the  way  of  compromise  which  he  has  completely 
avoided  —  that  the  allocation  of  the  property  to  the 
alleviation  of  the  extreme  forms  of  suffering  is  a  com- 
plete solution  of  what  was  thought  the  insoluble 
difficulty  of  finding  a  disposition  of  it  which  would  not 
excite  fierce  contention;  that  the  relief  to  the  County 
Cess  will  ultimately  (by  the  ordinary  law  of  competi- 
tion making  tenants  take  land  at  the  highest  rent 
that  will  be  compatible  with  its  paying),  be  beneficial 
to  the  landlord,  as  will  also  the  arrangements  about 
the  purchase  of  the  rent  charge,  and  finally  that  the 
adoption  of  the  Canadian  system  of  commuting  the 
life  interests  of  the  clergy  (which,  by  the  bye,  I  pre- 
dicted to  you  some  months  ago)  will  ultimately  place 


74  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

a  very  considerable  sum  at  the  disposal  of  the  new 
Protestant  Corporation.  This  is  the  kind  of  estimate 
of  the  measure  which  I  hear  on  all  sides  of  me,  and 
it  is  added  that,  looking  at  the  matter  as  a  statesman, 
this  Bill  has  the  immense  advantage  that,  with  the 
exception  of  throwing  open  Trinity  College,  it  seems 
to  settle  fully  and  finally  the  long  series  of  questions, 
of  "special  privileges"  between  the  two  Churches, 
while  looking  at  it  in  a  party  Hght  it  would  be  difficult 
to  conceive  a  measure  holding  out  bribes  to  so  many 
different  classes,  and  which,  while  dealing  with  such  vast 
interests,  presents  so  few  assailable  points  apart  from 
the  general  question  of  the  pohcy  it  executes.  In 
fact,  no  one,  I  think,  can  follow  the  English  news- 
papers of  all  classes  or  can  catch  the  tone  of  political 
society  here  without  perceiving  that  the  Bill  has 
immensely  enhanced  Gladstone's  reputation.  So  far 
I  have  written  simply  as  a  faithful  reporter.  For 
myself  I  think  there  is  one  great  fault  in  the  Bill  — 
that  the  compensation  for  Maynooth  and  the  Regium 
Donum  comes  out  of  Irish  national  property  and  not 
(like  the  endowments  compensation)  out  of  Imperial 
funds.  Seventy  thousand  pounds  a  year  less  will 
thus  go  to  Ireland  from  Imperial  taxation.  For  the 
rest,  I  believe  much  more  than  you  do  in  the  ultimate 
good  effects  of  religious  equality.  I  think  that  the 
question  having  once  been  fairly  raised  could  only 
be  settled  in  one  way,  and  that  it  was  most  important 
it  should  be  settled  quickly,  and  I  believe  it  will 
prevent  the  grant  of  a  charter  to  the  Catholic  Univer- 
sity and  probably  of  other  denominational  favours 
which  would  otherwise  have  been  inevitable  and 
would,  I  think,  be  most  pernicious.  I  was  glad  to 
find  that  Lord  Russell  (with  whom  I  dined  very  quietly 
about  ten  days  ago)  has  come  to  nearly  my  views 
about  the  Catholic  University,  which  Lord  Claren- 
don, whom  I  saw  about  three  weeks  ago,  holds  most 
strongly.  Such  be  the  sentiments  of  an  impenitent 
Liberal.' 


GRAND  JURY  IN  QUEEN's  COUNTY       75 

With  his  moderate  views  he  thought  at  the  time 
that  Irish  Protestants  instead  of  confining  themselves 
to  inveighing  against  the  principle  should  have  sug- 
gested modifications. 

'  Not  the  faintest  expression  of  Irish  Protestant 
opinion  ever  comes  here,'  he  wrote  in  the  same  letter. 
'If  you  had  advanced  any  pohcy  other  than  mere 
obstruction  a  few  months  ago,  there  are  numbers  here 
who  would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  compromise, 
and  even  now  I  believe  the  Irish  Protestants  might 
modify  what  they  cannot  possibly  prevent  if  they  only 
had  anything  definite  to  propose.' 

The  Bill  passed  that  session  through  both  Houses; 
and  the  change  was  carried  out  without  the  evil 
effects  which  its  opponents  had  anticipated.  It  is 
even  now  recognised  by  many  as  having  been  a  dis- 
tinct benefit  to  the  Irish  Church. 

During  that  summer  Lecky  was  asked  to  discharge 
one  of  his  duties  as  an  Irish  landlord. 

'  I  have  been  rather  locomotive  for  the  last  six 
weeks,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  from  Paris,  August  12, 
1869,  '  some  three  or  four  weeks  in  Ireland,  chiefly  at 
Salt  Hill,  partly  in  the  Queen's  County,  doing  what 
was  a  good  deal  out  of  ray  line,  serving  on  a  Grand 
Jury.  The  Assizes  were  rather  unusually  interesting 
from  our  High  Sheriff  being  shot.  His  carriage  came 
in  spattered  with  blood  while  we  were  waiting  for 
him  to  open  the  Assizes.' 

The  incident  made  some  sensation  at  the  time.  The 
High  Sheriff  of  the  Queen's  County  was  Mr.  Richard 
Warburton,  and  he  was  shot  at  while  driving  to  Mary- 
borough, where  the  Assizes  were  held.  The  outrage  — 
by  which  he  lost  an  eye  —  was  a  mysterious  one. 
Some  believed  it  to  be  of  an  agrarian  character,  and 


76  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

such  outrages  were  not  uncommon  then.  Others 
said  the  motive  was  a  sectarian  one;  but  it  was  never 
explained,  and  no  one  was  ever  made  amenable  for 
the  offence.  'Travelling,'  says  Lecky  in  the  same 
letter,  *  to  me  is  now  as  weary  as  an  oft  told  tale,  and 
I  have  not  much  expectation  of  enjoying  anything.' 
He  wanted,  however,  to  read  a  number  of  books  he 
had  collected,  and  he  went  to  his  relations  at  Ba- 
gneres,  and  made  from  there  another  excursion  into 
Spain. 

It  was  during  this  journey  that  he  became  acquainted 
with  Lord  Morris,  who  was  then  Judge  of  Common 
Pleas  in  Ireland,  and  who  was  travelUng  with  his 
wife.  They  were  thrown  together  in  one  of  those 
long  journeys  which  it  is  so  difficult  to  break  in  Spain, 
and  started  a  conversation  on  the  manners  and  morals 
of  various  countries,  which  soon  took  a  philosophical 
turn.  In  the  course  of  it  Judge  Morris  said,  '  You 
should  read  Lecky,'  whereupon  Lecky  very  shyly  pro- 
duced his  card  and  handed  it  to  Judge  Morris.  The 
acquaintance  thus  begun  ripened  into  a  warm  life- 
long friendship. 

On  his  return  to  Bagneres  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth 
(October  11,  1869);  'I  have  been  for  about  a  month 
in  Spain  —  Burgos,  Madrid,  Aranjuez,  Toledo,  Valla- 
dolid,  Valencia,  and  Leon  —  and  I  got  away  just 
before  the  Revolution.  I  have  been  reading  very 
steadily  at  a  single  subject  with  scarcely  any  digres- 
sions into  other  fields,  and  there  being  happily  no 
new  books  here  (or  next  to  none)  I  mean  to  go  on  in  the 
the  same  way  till  about  the  20th  or  25th  November, 
by  which  time  I  hope  to  have  got  through  about  forty 
formidable  volumes  which  I  brought  two  months  ago 
from  England,  when  I  mean  to  go  to  Rome.' 

Lecky  was  in  Italy  when  the  Council  met;  and  it 


ROME  77 

was  to  him  a  very  interesting  time;  for  Rome  was  then 
the  centre  of  a  large  number  of  remarkable  people 
from  all  parts  of  the  world.  There  are,  unfortunately, 
but  few  letters  of  that  period.  To  Mr.  Charles  Bowen 
he  wrote  from  Naples,  January  11,  1870: 

'I  have  been  going  about  Sorrento,  Araalfi,  and  La 
Cava.  Rome  I  find  very  interesting  just  now,  know- 
ing a  good  many  people  who  are  much  connected  with 
the  great  ecclesiastical  world  there.  People  at  Rome 
were  a  good  deal  amused  and  rather  scandalised  at  an 
odd  proceeding  of  the  Pope's  about  six  weeks  ago.  A 
hideous  little  African  bishop,  all  speckled  with  small- 
pox, was  presented  to  him,  and  the  Pope  asked  what 
language  he  spoke,  and  was  told  that  the  bishop 
neither  spoke  nor  understood  any  but  his  own.  Where- 
upon the  Pope  said  in  Italian,  in  a  solemn  tone  as  if 
he  was  giving  a  benediction,  "Then  since  you  do  not 
understand  me,  I  may  say  that  this  is  the  ugUest  son 
of  Christ  I  have  ever  seen." ' 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  Rome:  January  27,  1870.  — 
*  Except  about  a  month  at  Naples  and  in  its  environs, 
I  have  been  here  since  about  a  week  before  the  Coun- 
cil opened.  It  has  been  very  wet,  but  otherwise  not 
disagreeable,  and  by  no  means  overcrowded,. and  the 
constant  sight  of  seven  hundred  bishops  has  a  very 
elevating  effect.  They  sit  about  twice  a  week,  and 
people  are  not  allowed  to  go  even  under  the  dome  of 
St.  Peter's  lest  the  bishops  should  be  overheard.  .  .  . 
I  am  also  doing  a  great  deal  of  reading,  but  not  writ- 
ing, and  whether  this  latter  will  soon  begin  again  on 
any  considerable  scale  I  do  not  know.  I  often  feel 
very  low  and  down-hearted  about  it.  .  .  .' 

He  saw  something  of  American  CathoHcs,  and  as  he 
wrote  many  years  afterwards  to  an  American  friend, 
they  interested  him  very  much.  'There  was  a  Father 
Hecker  who  struck  me  as  a  singularly  able  man  —  at 


78  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

the  same  time  he  semed  to  me  intensely  American, 
and  amused  me  by  the  pathetic  earnestness  with 
which  he  said,  ''  If  the  Holy  Father  could  only  be  made 
to  see  how  much  better  he  would  get  on  if  he  allowed 
pubhc  meetings  and  a  free  press!"  and  I  attended  a 
series  of  sermons  by  the  American  bishops,  who  seemed 
to  me  to  take  most  of  their  models  of  supreme  excel- 
lence from  American  history.' 

The  saying  attributed  to  the  old  Duke  de  Sermo- 
neta,  'The  bishops  entered  the  Council  shepherds, 
they  came  out  of  it  sheep,'  seemed  to  him  'as  true  as 
it  was  witty.'  To  liberal-minded  Catholics  the  result 
of  the  Council  was  a  great  blow.  '  By  committing 
itself  to  the  infallibility  of  the  long  line  of  Popes,' 
Lecky  wrote  many  years  after,  'the  Church  cut  itself 
off  from  the  historical  spirit  and  learning  of  the  age 
and  has  exposed  itself  to  such  crushing  and  unanswer- 
able refutations  as  the  treatise  of  Janus  and  the  Let- 
ters of  Gratry.'  ^ 

Lecky  returned  to  England  in  March,  stopping  a 
few  days  with  Lord  Russell  at  San  Remo  on  the  way. 
The  Irish  Land  Bill  which  was  then  passing  through 
Parliament  was  much  discussed  between  them.  Lecky 
before  that  time  had  not  given  much  attention  to  the 
Irish  land  question,  and  he  wrote  somewhat  diffi- 
dently to  his  cousin,  Mr.  Charles  Bowen: 

6  Albemarle  Street:  March  14,  1870. — 'The  subject 
is  one  about  which,  I  do  not,  I  fear,  know  very  much, 
and  I  have  been  so  short  a  time  back  that  I  have  not 
had  the  opportunity  of  hearing  the  opinion  of  many 
politicians  upon  it,  but  as  far  as  I  can  judge  it  would 
have  been  hardly  possible  to  conceive  a  Bill  on  such  a 
subject   more   generally   approved   by   the    moderate 


»  Democracy  and  Liberty,  cabinet  edition,  vol.  ii.  p.  22. 


THE    LAND    BILL   OF    1870  79 

men  on  both  sides  of  the  House  (all,  that  is,  between 
the  Newdegate  type  of  Tory  on  one  side  and  the  Sir 
J.  Gray  type  of  agitator  on  the  other)  and  by  the 
papers  of  all  parties.  Lord  Russell  objects  to  one 
part  of  it  a  good  deal,  i.e.  to  the  presumption  that  all 
improvements  are  done  by  the  tenants.  He  thinks 
that  there  should  be  no  presumption  either  way,  but 
that  direct  proof  should  be  required  whenever  a  claim 
is  made.  I  was  talking  over  the  Bill  with  Sir  Erskine 
May,  who  is  a  very  high  political  authority,  and  he 
made  exactly  the  same  objection.  What  struck  me 
as  most  dangerous  in  the  Bill  was  that  there  is  no 
limit  to  the  time  for  which  claims  for  permanent  im- 
provements may  be  sent  in,  but  the  Attorney-General's 
speech  seemed  to  show  that  that  would  be  altered. 
I  do  not  see  why  Gladstone  should  legislate  at  all  for 
tenants  over  £100  per  annum,  as  he  introduced  the 
subject  by  saying  they  were  perfectly  able  to  take 
care  of  themselves;  but  perhaps  that  is  partly  because 
I  have  tenants  of  over  £100  per  annum.  Of  course 
the  Bill  interferes  a  great  deal  with  that  freedom  of 
contract  which  political  economists  have  preached, 
though  not  at  all  more  than  the  English  Factory  Bills, 
which  have  been  among  the  most  successful  branches 
of  modern  legislation.  But  I  think  the  immense 
majority  of  people  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  social,  political,  and  agricultural  condition 
of  Ireland  is  such  that  some  special  and,  if  you  like, 
paternal  legislation  for  Ireland  is  necessary;  and  if 
this  postulate  be  granted,  I  think  the  present  Bill  as 
a  whole  is  moderate,  honest,  and  comprehensive. 
Lord  Russell  thinks  the  landlords  will  be  very  foolish 
if  they  do  not  accept  its  principle;  that  if  they  do  they 
can  easily  introduce  modifications  in  Committee;  but 
that  all  parties  should  strenuously  insist  that  this  is 
to  be  a  settlement  and  not  an  instalment.  I  will  tell 
you  what  I  hear  that  is  worth  telling  about  it  from 
time  to  time,  but  generally  English  M.P.'s  know  next 


80  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

to  nothing  about  Irish  questions  and  ask  my  opinion 
about  them  when  we  meet,  and  on  land  questions  I 
am  afraid  1  am  by  no  means  competent  to  give  an 
opinion.  Please  tell  me  something  of  what  you  think 
upon  it  —  in  a  judicial  and  not  a  high  Tory  or  mere 
landlord  mood.  Did  you  not  think  the  closing  part 
of  Gladstone's  last  speech  extremely  good?  I  wish 
Captain  Damer's  idea  of  having  the  Scotch  system 
of  jury  in  Ireland  was  carried  out.' 

(To  the  same.)  6  Albemarle  Street:  March  30.  — ■ 
*I  am  sorry  you  are  so  pessimist  about  the  Land  Bill. 
I  wish  I  was  in  Parliament  to  vote  for  it.  I  think  a 
number  of  peasant  proprietors  would  be  one  of  the 
most  useful  and,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  con- 
servative of  elements  in  Irish  life,  and  that  the  Gov- 
ernment project  of  helping  tenants  to  buy  their 
property  will  do  much  to  call  such  proprietors  into 
being  on  terms  very  advantageous  to  all  parties.' 

Lecky  always  remained  favourable  to  the  Act  of 
1870,  though  he  thought  it  had  some  evil  consequences 
which  had  not  been  foreseen  and  that  it  admitted  a 
dangerous  principle  —  the  compensation  for  disturb- 
ance. 


CHAPTER   IV 

1870-1873. 

Queen  Sophia  of  the  Netherlands  —  The  House  in  the  Wood  — 
Franco-German  War — Revision  of  the  'Leaders  of  PubHc 
Opinion '  —  Engagement  —  Views   on    the  peace  conditions 

—  Darwin's  'Descent  of  Man'  —  London  hfe  —  Marriage  — 
Travels  —  Publication  of  the  revised  edition  of  the  'Leaders' 

—  Florence  —  Rome  —  Proposes  to  write  the  '  History  of 
England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century'  — Return  to  England  — 
Knowsley  —  London  society  —  Mr.  Carlyle  —  Irish  university 
education  —  Review  of  Mr.  Froude's   'English  in  Ireland' 

—  Family  bereavements. 

Not  long  after  his  return  in  March  he  first  met,  at 
Dean  Stanley's,  Queen  Sophia  of  the  Netherlands  and 
the  lady  who  attended  her  as  her  maid  of  honour, 
and  who  afterwards  became  his  wife.  It  was  now  more 
than  thirty  years  since  Queen  Sophia  died,  and  her 
character  and  views  are  a  matter  of  history.  She 
was  a  very  remarkable  personality.  Descended  on 
her  father's  side  from  the  House  of  Wurtemberg, 
which  played  a  considerable  part  in  history,  on  her 
mother's  side  from  the  Romanoffs,  she  had  inherited 
many  of  the  elements  of  greatness.  Her  grandfather, 
the  first  King  of  Wurtemberg,  was  the  man  whom 
Talleyrand  called  un  geant  dans  un  entresol:  her  father 
was  a  clever  and  cultivated  man.  Her  mother, 
Catherine  of  Russia,  sister  of  the  Emperor  Nicholas, 
was  a  woman  with  a  great  deal  of  character  and  a 
strong  will,  which  her  daughter  inherited.  Queen 
7  81 


82  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Sophia  had  a  keen  love  of  knowledge,  a  marvellous 
memory,  a  quick  perception,  and,  though  not  with- 
out prejudices,  a  statesraanUke  grasp  of  European 
politics,  in  which  her  father  had  early  initiated  her.* 
With  a  decided  philosophic  turn  of  mind  she  com- 
bined all  the  vivacity  of  the  South  German.  She  had 
a  great  command  of  expression,  and  her  conversa- 
tion reminded  one  at  times  of  the  best  traditions  of 
the  French  salon.  She  was  true  and  genuine,  and 
disliked  all  mannerism  and  affectation;  and  though 
no  one  could  ever  forget  she  was  the  Queen,  she  was 
so  genial  with  those  she  liked  that  she  made  them 
feel  perfectly  at  their  ease.  Being  free  from  the 
absorbing  duties  of  a  reigning  queen  and  from  some 
of  the  barriers  which  hedge  a  throne,  she  was  able  to 
read  a  great  deal  and  to  choose  her  friends,  and  she 
never  let  the  opportunity  pass  of  making  the  acquaint- 
ance of  a  remarkable  man  or  woman.  She  was  very 
fond  of  England,  where  she  had  some  of  her  best 
friends.  She  had  been  greatly  interested  in  Lecky's 
'  Rationalism '  and  *  European  Morals,'  and  had  ex- 
pressed a  wish  to  make  his  acquaintance.  It  was 
impossible  to  meet  Lecky,  even  for  the  first  time, 
without  being  struck  with  his  transparent  goodness 
and  single-mindedness,  his  natural  refinement,  and 
the  orginality  of  his  mind.  He  was  then  thirty-one 
years  old,  very  young-looking,  with  a  somewhat  shy 


1  Her  political  acumen  was  I'Autriche,    c'est    plus    qu'un 

shown     by     the     remarkable  crime,    c'est    une   faute.  .  .  .' 

letter  she  wrote  to  the  Em-  Thiers  took  the  same  view  as 

peror  Napoleon  in  1866,  which  regarded    the    Napoleon    dy- 

was  found  in  the  Tuileries  in  nasty  {Hohenlohe  Denkwiirdig- 

1871,    and    pubhshed    at    the  keiten,  liter  Band,  p.  130). 
time:    '.    .    .   Laisser    ^gorger 


QUEEN   SOPHIA   OF  THE   NETHERLANDS  83 

manner  at  first,  but  this  soon  wore  off.  His  travels 
had  given  him  that  knowledge  of  the  world  which 
greatly  facilitates  intercourse  with  foreigners,  and  his 
mastery  of  many  subjects,  his  large-mindedness,  his 
delicate  sense  of  humour,  were  much  appreciated  by 
Queen  Sophia.  He  was  asked  to  meet  her  several 
times  during  her  stay  in  England,  and  the  following 
summer  she  invited  him  to  pay  her  a  visit  at  the 
House  in  the  Wood,  near  The  Hague.  'I  should  be 
glad  to  see  you  here,'  she  wrote,  'and  I  beUeve  you 
would  find  points  of  interest  in  this  country  with  its 
glorious  past.'  The  visit  took  place  at  one  of  the 
critical  moments  in  the  world's  history,  and  Lecky 
left  the  House  in  the  Wood  on  the  eve  of  the  Franco- 
German  War.  'When  you  left  us  on  Thursday,'  the 
Queen  wrote  on  July  20,  'peace  seemed  a  blessed 
certainty.  A  few  hours  later  all  was  changed  and  the 
horrible  struggle  declared  that  throws  two  civilised 
nations  into  the  most  murderous  war.  The  world  in 
general  will  say,  and  I  fear  you  among  the  number, 
the  Emperor  is  the  aggressor.  .  .  .  '  She  hked  to 
remember  their  '  quiet  conversations,  so  different  from 
the  political  strife,'  and  she  expressed  the  hope  that 
he  would  return  another  year. 

Queen  Sophia  was  related  to  the  Napoleon  family, 
her  father's  sister  having  been  married  to  Jerome, 
King  of  Westphaha,  and  she  was  attached  to  the 
Napoleonic  traditions.  All  her  sympathies  were  nat- 
urally South  German.  She  disUked  intensely  Bis- 
marck's policy,  and  looked  with  dread  on  the  possible 
domination  of  Prussia  in  Germany. 

To  Mr.  Knightley  Chetwode,  Lecky  wrote  from 
Berne,  August  11,  1870,  that  he  had  paid  a  very  pleas- 
ant visit  of  about  a  week,  a  month  before,  to  the 
Queen  of  Holland.     No  one  else  was  visiting  there, 


84  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

and  he  saw  a  great  deal  of  the  Queen  alone  and  liked 
her  very  much. 

*I  afterwards  went  along  the  Rhine,  hearing  of  the 
declaration  of  war  in  the  train,  spent  about  a  fort- 
night in  the  Engadine  amid  lovely  scenery  and  in 
villages  quite,  or  nearly  6,000  feet  above  the  sea,  and 
so  came  down  here.  1  confess  newspapers  at  the  pres- 
ent moment  are  even  more  fascinating  to  me  than 
mountains,  and  I  must  at  all  events  wait  at  large 
centres  of  news  till  the  decisive  battle  has  been  fought. 
I  think  if,  as  seems  probable,  this  war  ends  with  a 
German  occupation  of  Paris  and  with  the  deposition 
of  the  Emperor,  it  will  have  been  one  of  the  most 
striking  instances  of  swift  retribution  on  record.  No 
war  was  ever  more  wantonly  originated  by  a  French 
ruler  or  more  enthusiastically  acclaimed  by  the  French 
people  or  prefaced  by  more  insolent  and  vainglorious 
boasting.' 

Though  subsequent  revelations  have  shown  that 
Bismarck  bore  a  grave  responsibility  in  bringing  the 
crisis  to  a  head,  it  seems  doubtful  whether,  even  with- 
out the  garbled  telegram,  war  could  have  been  averted. 
The  moderation  of  the  two  sovereigns  counted  for  very 
little.  There  were  mightier  forces  impelUng  the  two 
nations  to  a  struggle  which  was  bound  to  come.  Bis- 
marck, having  satisfied  himself  that  his  country  was 
ready,  only  precipitated  matters. 

Lecky  returned  to  England  in  September  by  the 
Rhine.  'Saw  Strasburg  with  the  cathedral  rising 
sadly  from  a  cloud  of  smoke,  and  had  not  even  the 
excitement  of  being  arrested  as  a  spy.'  ^  The  temper 
of  a  section  of  the  French  nation  at  the  time  provoked 
much  condemnation,  and  Lecky  denounced  it  in  very 
strong  language: 

»  To  Mr.  C.  Bowen,  September  20,  1870. 


FRANCO-GERMAN   WAR  85 

'  I  think  that  there  never  has  been  in  our  time,'  he 
wrote  to  a  foreign  friend/  '  a  more  pitiable,  more 
frightful,  and  at  the  same  time  more  despicable  spec- 
tacle than  that  of  the  French  nation  in  the  first  weeks 
of  the  war.  All  the  lust  for  territory,  the  ferocity  and 
the  folly  which  1815  for  a  time  suppressed  appearing 
again;  the  most  popular  newspapers  full  of  the  basest 
calumnies  and  the  most  brutal  taunts  directed  against 
the  great  people  they  were  attacking;  the  Emperor 
proclaiming  openly  that  a  "war  is  just  whenever  the 
people  approve  it,"  M.  Rouher  giving  as  the  reason 
for  making  the  war  that  they  had  now  got  their 
weapons  ready;  the  streets  of  Paris  full  of  crowds  shout- 
ing: "A  Berlin!"  and  "  Vive  la  guerre!"  boasting  with- 
out the  slightest  concealment  that  they  were  going 
to  appropriate  some  of  the  most  essentially  German 
parts  of  Germany,  and  exulting  with  a  brutal  glee  that, 
thanks  to  their  chassepots  and  their  mitrailleuses, 
they  could  attack  the  German  people  on  unequal  terms 
and  with  more  bloody  weapons,  and  could  plunder 
them  almost  with  impunity;  while  the  Government  in 
their  bulletins  and  the  newspapers  in  their  accounts 
of  the  war  have  dealt  in  falsehood  and  misrepresenta- 
tion to  a  degree  which  may  have  been  equalled  but 
has  certainly  never  been  surpassed.  I  think  that 
the  calm,  patriotic,  unboastful,  enthusiasm  which  the 
Germans  have  shown,  their  manifest  love  of  peace, 
their  simple  piety  in  the  hour  of  victory,  have  been 
very  noble,  and  that  on  the  whole  this  war  justifies 
more  fully  than  any  other  I  remember  the  doctrine 
of  my  old  friend  Carlyle  that  "  right  is  might "  (which 
in  general  I  don't  believe).  I  think  that  though  one 
can  hardly  exaggerate  the  miseries  of  this  war,  it  is 
more  likely  (partly  on  account  of  those  miseries)  to 
be  followed  by  a  long  peace  than  any  previous  war. 
If  anything  can  extirpate  the  French  love  of  war  and 


The  lady  who  afterwards  became  his  wife. 


86  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

lust  for  conquest  it  will  be  this  war;  the  worship  of 
the  Napoleon  ideal,  which  has  done  so  much  to  debase 
them,  must  be  seriously  weakened,  and  the  Germans, 
from  their  national  character  and  from  the  nature  of 
their  army  (which  consists  of  civilians  and  married 
men)  are  not  likely  to  be  permanently  aggressive,  and 
if  the  dominating  power  on  the  Continent  passes  into 
their  hands,  I  think  the  moral  level  of  European  civil- 
isation will  be  raised. 

'  At  the  same  time  my  feelings  about  it  are  very 
mingled.  It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  a  deep  compas- 
sion for  the  French,  and  especially  for  the  peasants 
of  the  invaded  departments,  or  a  great  respect  for 
the  courage  they  have  so  often  displayed.  I  do  not 
like  Bismarck.  I  think  the  bombardment  of  Strasburg 
was  very  bad,  and  that  of  Paris  would  be  much  worse, 
and  I  am  very  anxious  to  see  whether  the  Germans 
will  prove  moderate  and  magnanimous  in  peace. 
They  are,  I  think,  a  less  generous  people  than  the 
French.  ' 

Although  he  took  this  strong  view  about  the  origin 
of  the  war,  he  did  not  like  the  line  the  war  was  taking ; 

'for  there  is  a  France,'  he  wrote  to  the  same  friend  on 
October  3,  1870,  'the  France  of  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,  of  the  Debats  and  the  Temps,  of  M.  Renan 
and  Bishop  Dupanloup,  that  I  think  the  most  charm- 
ing of  all  countries,  and  I  quite  agree  with  M.  Renan 
(in  his  admirable  article  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes) 
that  the  eclipse  of  that  France  would  blot  out  a  sun 
from  the  sky.  I  trust  it  may  not  come  to  pass,  but 
I  cannot  conceal  from  myself  that  France  was  utterly 
wrong  in  the  war,  that  she  began  it  with  an  amount 
of  boasting  and  of  lying  that  was  to  the  last  degree 
revolting,  that  the  notion  of  a  country  not  being 
responsible  for  the  acts  of  its  Government  (especially 
when  that  Government  was  cheered  to  the  echo  by 
a  Parliament  elected  by  universal  suffrage)    is  gro- 


VIEWS   ON  THE   WAR  87 

tesquely  absurd,  and  that  Germany  has  a  perfect 
right  to  take  such  positions  as  will  assure  and  strengthen 
her  frontier.  With  these  views  I  am  a  great  deal 
more  French  than  the  people  I  meet  in  London.  I 
have  hardly  ever,  indeed,  known  the  opinion  of  able 
and  thinking  men  in  England  so  perfectly  unani- 
mous, the  prevailing  sentiment  with  nearly  all  to 
whom  I  have  spoken  being  a  deep  satisfaction  that 
what  they  consider  one  of  the  most  iniquitous  attempts 
of  modern  times  has  recoiled  disastrously  upon  its 
authors,  and  a  persuasion  that  the  substitution  of 
Germany  for  France  as  the  ruling  power  will  be  of 
great  benefit  to  civilisation.  I  took  a  walk  the  other 
day  with  your  prophet,  Carlyle,  who  assured  me 
that  the  result  of  this  war  was  "the  most  beneficent 
thing  that  had  happened  in  the  universe  since  he  had 
been  in  it,"  and  that  it  reminded  him  of  "how  Sath- 
anas  went  forth  breathing  boasting  and  blasphemy 
and  hell-fire,  and  St.  Michael,  with  a  few  strokes  of  his 
glittering  sword,  brayed  the  monster  in  the  dust." 
My  own  view  of  it,  you  see,  is  not  his,  and  I  am  a 
little  sceptical  about  the  resemblance  between  St. 
Michael  and  Count  Bismarck.' 

Lecky  was  then  at  Killarney,  and  about  the  feeling 
in  Ireland  he  writes  in  the  same  letter: 

'In  Ireland,  on  the  other  hand,  we  are  passionately 
French  —  partly  because  we  think  ourselves  rather 
like  the  French,  partly  because  of  the  Irish  brigade 
which,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  served  under 
France,  and  partly  because  the  EngUsh,  whom  of  all 
people  we  dislike  the  most,  take  the  other  side.  The 
country  people  stop  one  in  the  roads  to  ask  for  news 
of  the  war,  and  carmen  and  guides  overwhelm  one 
with  political  discussion.  I  wish  you  knew  Ireland. 
I  have  so  many  enthusiasms  and  associations  con- 
nected with  it,  and  its  history,  and  its  politics  have  so 
deeply  coloured  all  my  ways  of  thinking.     I  always 


88  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE  LECKY 

return  to  Killarney  as  in  some  respects  the  most  per- 
fectly beautiful  place  I  have  ever  known.  The  lakes, 
and  especially  the  mountains,  are  very  small  as  com- 
pared with  those  of  Switzerland,  but  the  richness  and 
variety  of  the  foliage  —  arbutus  and  holly  spangling 
the  darker  greens  —  and  the  beauty  of  the  innumer- 
able islands,  I  have  never  seen  approached,  and  there 
is  a  soft,  dreamy  mist  quivering  over  the  mountains 
and  mellowing  the  landscape  which  is  to  my  mind 
the  very  ideal  of  poetic  beauty.  I  am  sure,  too,  you 
would  be  struck  with  the  people,  the  most  affectionate, 
imaginative,  and  quick-witted  race  I  have  ever  known.' 

He  was  now  deeply  immersed  in  the  revision  of  his 
'Leaders  of  Public  Opinion.'  He  had  been  strongly 
urged  to  reprint  these  biographies,  and  the  increased 
interest  in  Irish  affairs  made  the  time  seem  favourable 
to  him  for  revising  them  and  publishing  them  under 
his  own  name,  with  an  introduction  explaining  his 
views.  Much  had  happened  in  Ireland  to  modify  his 
early  opinions.  The  Fenian  spirit  had  survived  the 
suppression  of  the  outbreak  in  1867,  and  disloyalty 
was  more  rampant  than  it  had  been  in  the  days  of 
O'Connell,  who  indeed  always  maintained  attachment 
to  the  connection.  Though  Lecky  felt  that  the 
national  sentiment  was  too  real  and  strong  to  be  dis- 
regarded, he  did  not  think  that  the  conditions  of  Ire- 
land justified  a  separate  Parliament  such  as  Mr. 
Butt  advocated.  However,  the  days  were  not  yet 
when  all  power  was  to  be  taken  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  educated  and  propertied  classes,  and  he  was  still 
sanguine  enough  to  hope  that  some  measure  of  local 
government  in  which  these  classes  should  have  a  pre- 
dominant influence  might  be  possible.  As  he  said  in 
his  introduction,  'To  call  into  active  political  life  the 
upper  class  of  Irishmen  and  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of 


REVISION   OF   THE    '  LEADERS'  89 

their  political  power,  to  give,  in  a  word,  to  Ireland  the 
greatest  amount  of  self-government  that  is  compat- 
ible with  the  unity  and  security  of  the  Empire,  should 
be  the  aim  of  every  statesman.'  He  was  also  hopeful 
at  that  time  that  sectarian  animosity  would  diminish, 
and  that  'united  education'  under  perfect  religious 
equality  would  '  assuage  the  bitterness  of  sects  and 
perhaps  secure  for  Ireland  the  inestimable  benefit  of 
real  union.'  He  eliminated  passages  that  he  thought 
too  rhetorical  in  his  early  volume,  left  out  the  chapter 
on  'Clerical  Influences,'  and  added  much  new  infor- 
mation. 

He  was  now  also  collecting  material  for  his  '  History 
of  England.'  At  the  same  time  he  thought  seriously 
of  matrimony,  and  became  engaged  to  the  lady  he 
had  met  in  London  with  the  Queen  of  Holland,  and 
of  whom  he  had  seen  more  at  the  House  in  the  Wood. 
She  was  the  eldest  daughter  of  General  Baron  van 
Dedem  and  of  his  first  wife.  Baroness  Sloet  van  Hagens- 
dorp.  He  hoped  to  bring  out  the  '  Leaders '  in  the 
spring  of  1871,  and  worked  hard  through  the  winter, 
only  allowing  himself  a  three  weeks'  holiday  in  Jan- 
uary to  go  to  The  Hague.  It  had  been  arranged  that 
the  marriage  was  to  take  place  in  the  summer,  and 
that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lecky  should  travel  for  some  time 
and  spend  the  subsequent  winter  in  Italy.  Lecky 
was  therefore  anxious  to  make  the  most  of  this  last 
winter  of  bacherlorhood  in  London  and  to  get  his  work 
into  such  shape  as  to  be  independent  of  libraries  for 
some  time.  He  found,  however,  to  his  disappoint- 
ment, that  the  revision  took  much  longer  than  he  had 
anticipated;  that  the  publication  would  have  to  be 
delayed;  and  that  he  could  not  give  as  much  time  as 
he  had  hoped  to  his  new  book,  'which  was  as  yet 
only  in  its  first  stage.' 


90  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

The  devastating  war  between  France  and  Germany 
was  now  at  last  drawing  to  a  close,  and  early  in  Febru- 
ary the  conditions  of  peace  were  announced.  To 
Lecky,  they  appeared  extremely  harsh,  and  he  feared 
that  in  our  lifetime  the  world  would  never  be  again 
as  prosperous  and  advanced  as  the  year  before,  and 
that  '  to  arrive  once  more  at  the  state  of  things  before 
1848  was  a  dream  too  sanguine  ever  to  hope  for.' 

The  publication  of  Darwin's  'Descent  of  Man'  was 
another  great  event  that  winter. 

British  Museum:  March  4,  1871. — 'What  I  have 
read  of  it,  he  wrote,^  appeared  to  me  extremely  power- 
ful and  plausible,  and  I  think  the  book  by  far  the  most 
interesting,  and  even  fascinating,  on  physical  science 
I  have  ever  read.  The  notion  of  perpetual  orderly 
progress  from  the  lowest  zoophyte  to  the  highest  man 
appears  to  me  a  most  noble  one  and  the  promise  of  a 
great  future  to  the  world  and  (in  spite  of  all  Bismarcks 
and  Napoleons)  extremely  consoling.  The  book  ap- 
peared on  the  day  that  horrid  peace  was  signed,  and 
I  dare  say  in  the  long  run  it  will  prove  the  more  impor- 
tant event  of  the  two.  I  know,  unfortunately,  very 
little  of  physical  science,  but  I  know  no  book  which 
seems  to  me  to  go  so  far  towards  what  Buckle  some- 
what ambitiously  called  "  solving  the  problem  of  the 
universe." 

'I  must  say  this  peace  seems  to  me  to  have  thrown 
the  world  generations  back,  and  the  intense  inter- 
national animosities  it  will  produce  and  the  permanent 
depression  of  thirty-seven  millions  of  men  is  very 
dreadful  to  think  of.  I  detest  Bismarckism  very 
much,  but  still  more  allowance  must  be  made  than 

you  at will  make  for  a  nation  embittered  by  the 

brutal  crushing  tyranny  that  followed  Jena,  by  the 
exultation  with  which  that  tyranny  was  recalled  by 

•  To  E.  V.  D. 


INFLUENCE   OF    'HISTORY   OF   MORALS '  01 

the  French  newspapers  only  a  few  months  ago,  by  a 
war  which  was  one  of  the  most  infamously  unpro- 
voked and  wanton  aggressions  in  history,  and  by  the 
tone  of  the  Paris  papers,  which,  even  after  the  sur- 
render, pretended  that  Frenchmen  had  not  really 
been  beaten.  A  nation  is  not  apt  to  be  forbearing 
when  nearly  every  family  has  lost  a  member  in  resist- 
ing an  unrighteous  attack.  Still,  the  terms  are 
atrociously  hard,  and  I  am  very  sorry  indeed  for  the 
French,  especially  the  moral  degradation  they  have 
exhibited.  On  the  whole,  one  sees  httle  consolation 
for  Europe  except  in  the  monkey  theory.' 

At  the  time  of  the  Commune  he  wrote  to  the  same 
correspondent : 

6  Albemarle  Street:  March  28. — 'I  am  quite  in 
despair  about  Paris:  it  is  so  sad  and  at  the  same  time 
so  unspeakably  contemptible.  The  Revolution  and 
that  most  hateful  Empire  have  corroded  the  character 
of  the  people  to  the  core,  and  all  Burke's  prophecies, 
which  people  had  called  so  exaggerated,  are  coming 
true.  What  a  contrast  to  the  attitude  of  Prussia 
when  she  was  crushed  in  1806!  To  anybody  who  had 
been  trying  to  beheve  in  human  progress  it  is  all 
profoundly  disheartening.' 

In  those  days,  while  at  the  British  Museum,  he 
came  across  a  little  incident  which  gratified  him  a 
good  deal.  Someone  connected  with  the  Museum 
told  him  that  he  had  been  immensely  indebted  to  his 
last  book  (the  '  History  of  Morals ') ,  and  that  in  a  pub- 
lic discussion  which  had  been  going  on  in  London 
about  the  effect  of  Christianity  in  the  world  he  had, 
relying  on  this  book,  so  far  succeeded  in  defeating 
an  atheistic  lecturer  who  had  been  contending  that 
Christianity  was  an  unmixed  evil  that  the  latter  had 
acknowledged  his  errors  and  quite  separated  from  his 
former  associates. 


92  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HAllTPOLE    LECKY 

One  of  his  letters  at  that  time  *  (Athenaeum  Club, 
April  2,  1871)  gives  an  epitome  of  his  former  life: 

'For  four  or  five  very  happy  years  after  I  left  col- 
lege I  Uved  in  almost  complete  soUtude  and  in  pure 
thought,  but  since  I  settled  in  London,  which  was,  I 
think,  in  '65  or  '66,  I  have  been  for  about  five  months 
of  every  year  going  out  a  great  deal,  on  an  average, 
I  think,  about  three  times  a  week,  and  know  enormous 
numbers  of  people,  and  have  generally  spent  about 
two  months  of  the  remainder  of  the  year,  not  indeed 
in  the  house,  but  chiefly  living  with  my  mbther,  so 
that  a  very  moderate  amount  of  real  solitude  remained. 
I  think  everyone  who  does  serious  intellectual  work 
must  be  a  good  deal  alone,  and  I  have  found  the  alter- 
nation very  propitious  for  my  work.  Here  one  gets 
over-strained  and  over-excited  with  the  throng  of 
conflicting  interests  and  ambitions,  reading  hastily 
and  superficially  innumerable  books  on  innumerable 
subjects,  seeing  crowds  of  people  who  stimulate  and 
tire  one's  intellect,  and  amassing  quantities  of  undi- 
gested facts;  and  when  I  have  got  into  a  state  of  mor- 
bid, feverish  excitabiUty  I  have  usually  gone,  with 
some  long  and  serious  books  which  require  minute  and 
patient  study,  somewhere  far  from  everyone  I  know, 
and  have  there,  in  long,  solitary  mountain  walks, 
calmed  my  mind  and  systematised  my  thoughts.' 

'I  am  afraid,  so  far,'  he  wrote  to  the  same  corre- 
spondent (Athenaeum,  March  28),  'I  have  never  suc- 
ceeded in  being  even  approximately  happy,  except 
when  working  hard,  and  that  I  have  measured  my 
life  chiefly  by  what  I  have  learnt  and  what  I  have 
done.' 

His  ambition,  as  he  explained,  was  'chiefly  the 
desire  of  the  plant  to  produce  its  fruit,  that  intense 
longing  to  reahse  ideals  of  force  and  beauty,  to  make 

1  To  E.  V.  D. 


WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 
From  a  Photograph  by  Mayall,  1871 


LONDON    LIFE  93 

confused  subjects  plain,  and  to  imprint  certain  views 
on  the  minds  of  men,'  which  was,  he  suspected,  the 
strongest  passion  of  most  people  with  any  real  faculty. 
'  I  should  not,  for  example,  the  least  care  to  get  into 
ParUament  to  make  a  noise  and  so  forth,  but  simply 
because  it  is  the  sphere  in  which  a  certain  order  of 
capacities  can  alone  be  developed.' 

While  working  hard  that  spring  he  saw  much  of 
his  friends,  visiting  Lord  and  Lady  Russell  at  Rich- 
mond, one  of  his  greatest  pleasures;  Sir  Henry  and 
Lady  Taylor  at  Mortlake;  walking  with  Mr.  Carlyle, 
to  whom  he  was  very  devoted,  but  of  whom  he  says 
on  one  occasion  that  'he  talked  much  eloquent  and 
exasperating  nonsense';  talking  over  Irish  history 
with  Mr.  Froude  or  discussing  political  questions 
with  Mr.  Trevelyan;  breakfasting  with  Sir  Henry 
Holland,  of  w'hom  he  was  'very  fond';  meeting  'Anti- 
quarians' at  Lord  Stanhope's,  the  Historian,  'a  sin- 
gularly agreeable  dinner  party;  Lord  Houghton  was 
there  and  told  many  most  curious  anecdotes,  and  Lord 
Acton,  who  is  a  person  I  like  and  admire  greatly.' 
After  dining  with  Lord  Stratford  de  RedcUffe  he 
wrote :  ^ 

'I  always  look  at  Lord  Stratford  through  the  halo 
which  Kinglake's  book  has  thrown  around  him,  and  I 
cannot  realise  that  quiet,  gentle-looking  old  man  being 
at  times  so  very  terrible.  A  great  friend  of  the  late 
Duke  of  Newcastle  told  me  that  the  Duke  said  he  had 
never  witnessed  anything  so  terrible  as  the  explosion 
of  Lord  Stratford's  fury,  and  all  the  authorities  at 
Constantinople,  from  the  Sultan  downwards,  seem  to 

1  To  E.  V.  D.     Lord  Strat-      marriage,  in  which  he  showed 
ford  was  a  friend  of  both  Mr.       a  kind  interest, 
and  Mrs.   Lecky  before  their 


94  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

have  literally  cowered  before  him!  He  has  been 
having  much  gout,  and  looks  a  good  deal  broken.  He 
is  always  very  kind  to  me.' 

He  also  met  again  the  great  Irish  novelist,  Mr. 
Lever,  whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  at  Spezzia, 
and  whom  he  greatly  liked,  'perhaps  all  the  more 
because  people  in  general  make  rather  a  set  against 
him.' 

He  went  to  see  his  friends  the  Chetwodes  at  Chel- 
tenham, and  liked  revisiting  the  places  he  knew  as  a 
schoolboy,  and  also  the  house  of  his  old  tutor  near 
Gloucester. 

'  It  is  a  curious,  dreamy  sensation,'  he  wrote  (March 
4,  1871),  'going  back  to  a  place  one  knew  many,  many 
years  ago  and  recalling  various  painful  associations; 
for  I  hated  public-school  life  greatly,  never  playing 
any  games,  and  being  driven  to  the  very  verge  of 
distraction  at  living  always  with  other  boys.' 

Lecky  all  his  life  disliked  ceremonies  in  which  he 
had  to  play  a  conspicuous  part. 

'I  own,'  he  wrote »  (6  Albemarle  Street,  March  22), 
'I  envy  a  good  deal  (since  one  cannot  follow  Adam's 
precedent  and  be  married  in  a  deep  sleep)  the  lot  of  a 
great  friend  of  mine,  Thackeray's  daughter,^  who  was 
married  a  few  years  ago  in  what  seems  to  me  a  really 
rational  way  —  the  event  not  talked  about  before 
outside  the  family  circle,  and  the  pair  duly  walked 
one  morning  at  eight  o'clock,  with  one  or  two  rela- 
tions and  in  ordinary  costume,  to  the  church  and 
went  through  the  operation  and  then  returned  quietly 
to  breakfast.' 

The  marriage  took  place  in  June  1871,  and  it  was 
one  of  the  little  ironies  of  life  that  Lecky,  who  desired 

»  To  E.  V.  D.  2  -phg  flrst  Mrs.  Leslie  Stephen. 


MARRIAGE  95 

his  wedding  to  be  as  quiet  as  possible,  should  have 
been  married  at  a  Court;  but  this  was  inevitable,  as 
Queen  Sophia  wished  it  to  be  from  her  house.  The 
civil  ceremony  took  place  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and 
the  religious  service  at  the  British  Legation,  over 
which  Admiral  Harris  at  that  time  presided.  The 
wedding  breakfast  was  given  by  the  Queen  at  the 
House  in  the  Wood,  in  the  fine  hall  called  'Oranje 
Zaal,'  where  the  Peace  Conference  of  1899  was  held. 
Prince  Alexander,  the  Queen's  second  son,^  proposed 
the  healths  of  the  newly  married  couple,  which  Lecky 
acknowledged  in  a  few  felicitous  and  graceful  words, 
such  as  he  always  had  at  his  command. 

The  Oberammergau  play  had  been  put  off  on  account 
of  the  war  from  1870  to  1871,  and  Lecky,  who  had 
been  much  struck  with  it  the  first  time,  wished  to  see 
it  again  with  his  wife  and  to  spend  some  time  among 
the  beautiful  Bavarian  and  Austrian  scenery  on  the 
way  to  Switzerland  and  Italy.^  Meanwhile  he  put 
the  finishing  touches  to  the  revision  of  the  'Leaders.' 
He  had  the  proof-sheets  sent  out  to  him  at  Montreux, 
and  it  was  published  in  the  December  of  that  year. 
Though  he  did  not  anticipate  that  the  book  would  be 
as  successful  as  his  former  ones,  he  thought  it  might 
make  some  impression  at  a  time  when  Home  Rule 
was  a  prominent  subject,  as  it  contained  '  a  great 
quantity  of  little-known  Irish  history  and  outrages 
the  feelings  of  all  respectable  Englishmen  about  the 
Union  and  about  Pitt,  concerning  whom  I  have  been 

>  He     became     Prince     of  a  journey  to  the  United  States 

Orange     after     his     brother's  and  a  course  of  lionising  there 

death   in    1879,    and    died   in  would  be  the  most  agreeable 

1884.  and  congenial  way  of  spending 

2  Some  of  Lecky 's  admirers  the  honeymoon! 
in  America  had  suggested  that 


96  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

very  violent.'     He  was,  however,  much  disappointed 
with  its  reception. 

*I  fear  the  world  does  not  at  all  agree  with  you 
about  my  performances,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  from 
Florence,  January  24,  1872.  'Just  thirty-four  people 
bought  this  piece  of  unparalleled  historical  writing 
when  it  first  came  out,  and  whether  it  is  going  now  to 
attract  any  considerable  attention  seems  to  me  very 
doubtful.  Before  it  appeared  I  never  saw  it  noticed 
in  any  one  of  the  letters  about  forthcoming  literary 
works  as  one  in  which  anybody  took  the  smallest 
interest.  Two  or  three  days  after  its  appearance  the 
Longmans,  in  writing  about  it,  noticed  that  they 
were  surprised  at  the  comparatively  small  number  of 
copies  taken  by  the  trade,  and,  except  one  polite  but 
very  insignificant  review  in  the  Standard,  I  have  not 
seen  a  line  in  print  on  the  subject.  Compare  this  with 
Hepworth  Dixon's  "Switzers"  (which,  I  believe,  came 
out  some  days  after  my  book)  the  praise  of  which  is 
in  every  newspaper,  and  you  will  see  how  little  hold 
I  have  on  the  general  mind  in  England.  As  for 
Irish  people,  they  seem  to  me  chiefly  to  know  me  by 
Cardinal  Cullen,  who  is  good  enough  to  make  me  a 
standing  argument  in  support  of  his  denunciations 
of  T.C.D.  I  quite  agree  with  you  in  thinking  Grattan 
the  best,  and  in  your  criticism  on  Flood.  All  I  can 
say  on  this  latter  point  is  that  those  who  knew  Grat- 
tan and  Plunket  nearly  all  said  that  Flood  was  fully 
their  equal;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  scarcely 
a  vestige  in  print  of  his  early  achievements.  .  .  that 
he  gave  a  justification  of  his  conduct  which  is  not 
unreasonable;  that  his  contemporaries  thought  him  a 
very  great  man;  that  Lord  Charlemont,  who  was  his 
close  friend  and  a  very  good  man,  admired  him  to  the 
end;  and  that  his  biography  and  that  of  O'Connell  are 
among  the  poorest  and  worst  written  in  the  English 
language.     Concerning   style,   some   of   the   passages 


THE    REVISED    'LEADERS'  97 

you  admire  I  think  too  declamatoiy,  but  I  could  not 
well  improve  them.  One's  imagination  is  in  full 
vigour  at  twenty-two  or  twenty-three,  but  one's 
taste  is  still  imperfect.  There  are  passages  in  my 
"ReUgious  Tendencies,"  I  think,  as  eloquent  as  any- 
thing I  could  now  write,  but  there  is  also  a  good  deal 
of  bombast  and  tinsel  in  the  book  of  which  I  could  not 
now  be  guilty.  .  .  .' 

In  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  a  certain  number  of 
reviews  appeared;  but  though  they  were  all  favourable, 
Irish  history  did  not  prove  to  be  a  popular  subject, 
and  the  English  public  do  not  seem  to  care  for  new 
editions,  even  though  the  first  may  have  been  quite 
unnoticed. 

At  a  later  date  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  from  Rome, 
March  16:  'My  Irish  book  is  being  translated  into 
German:  rather  more  than  five  hundred  copies  have 
been  sold,  and  it  seems  to  have  excited  some  enthusi- 
asm among  the  "mendicant  patriots"  of  my  country, 
judging  from  the  number  of  people  who  have  been 
asking  for  copies.' 

In  Germany,  where  his  books  were  very  popular,  a 
new  edition  of  the  translation  of  the  '  Rationalism ' 
came  out  that  winter;  while  in  Russia  a  publisher  was 
tried  for  publishing  a  Russian  translation,  on  the 
ground  that  it  contained  attacks  upon  Christianity. 
Although  he  was  acquitted,  the  book  was  put  under 
clerical  supervision,  which  was  equivalent  to  its  sup- 
pression. 

Among  the  social  incidents  of  the  journey  were  a 
warm  reception  by  Lord  and  Lady  Russell  at  Renens- 
sur-Roche,  near  Lausanne,  where  they  were  settled 
for  some  weeks;  visits  to  Queen  Sophia  at  Bex  and 
Lausanne,  and  to  that  interesting  old  lady,  Mme.  de 
Bunsen,  'widow  of  the  Bunsen,'  who  was  staying  with 
8 


98  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

her  daughters  near  Montreux.  At  Florence  Lecky 
found  his  old  friend  Sir  James  Lacaita. 

(To  Mr.  Bowen.)  Florence:  January  17,  1872.  — 
'We  came  down  from  Montreux  over  the  Corniche  as 
being  the  least  cold  way,  found  the  promised  railway 
not  yet  opened,  spent  a  few  days  at  Nice  and  a  whole 
week  in  the  bright  sunshine  of  Mentone,  and  so,  through 
Genoa  and  Parma,  came  down  here.  We  are  very 
busy  with  picture-galleries,  and  there  is  an  admirable 
circulating  library,  of  which  I  largely  avail  myself. 
I  met,  too,  an  ItaUan  London  friend,  and  we  have  in 
consequence  been  a  little  into  Italian  society,  seeing 
the  Corsinis,  General  La  Marmora,  and  a  host  of  dep- 
uties. Most  Italians  I  speak  to  seem  rather  disgusted 
with  their  new  capital,  especially  as  the  Parliament 
Hall  they  have  built  there  has  turned  out  a  failure.  On 
the  whole,  however,  they  seem  getting  on  very  well — ■ 
education  spreading  rapidly,  the  product  of  the  taxes 
increasing  with  wonderful  rapidity,  and  some  reason- 
able prospects  of  closing  in  three  or  four  years  the 
period  of  deficits.  Many  people,  however,  have  got 
(what  appears  to  me  to  be)  a  very  unreasonable  fear 
of  France  attacking  them.  I  met,  too,  here  lately 
Lord  Salisbury,  who  has  had  a  slight  attack  of  fever 
at  Rome;  and  Mr.  Adams,  who  had  just  come  from 
Geneva.  He  complained  bitterly  that  the  arbitrators 
had  had  to  postpone  the  discussion  for  six  months, 
and  that  he  alone  of  the  number  had  no  home  to  go 
to  in  the  meantime.  He  says  that  two  of  the  arbi- 
trators do  not  understand  English,  in  which  language 
the  cases  on  both  sides  are  drawn  up;  and  he  struck 
me  as  being  by  no  means  proud  of  the  very  extrava- 
gant claims  of  his  countrymen,  and  as  scarcely  deny- 
ing that  they  were  put  forward  on  the  principle  of 
Italian  shopmen,  who  ask  about  three  times  what 
they  expect  to  get.' 

Writing  to  his  stepmother  from  Rome  on  Febru- 
ary 13,  1872,  he  says: 


ITALIAN   JOURNEY  99 

'We  stopped  on  our  way  at  Perugia  and  Assisi  and 
arrived  here  quite  impregnated  with  St.  Francis. 
People  are  grumbling  a  good  deal  about  the  changes 
in  Rome,  but,  as  usual,  exaggerating  a  good  deal,  for 
the  change  in  most  ways  is  of  a  rather  superficial 
kind.  Great  excavations  are  going  on  at  the  Forum, 
and  the  new  life  of  newspapers,  &c.,  strikes  one  who 
knew  Rome  of  old  very  forcibly.' 

To  Lecky  Italy  was  the  true  terrestrial  Paradise 
which  supplied  him  with  ideas  and  memories  that 
brightened  all  after-life;  and  it  was  a  privilege,  his 
wife  wrote  from  Rome  at  the  time,  to  see  it  with  one 
who  knew  it  so  well.  No  one  could  better  initiate 
others  into  the  spirit  of  early  Christian  symbohsm  — 
or  the  beauty  of  the  art  of  the  Renaissance,  both  in 
its  initial  stage,  imbued  with  that  childlike,  sincere 
piety  which  no  modern  art  can  reproduce,  and  in  its 
culmination,  when  pagan  ideals  of  physical  beauty 
began  to  reassert  themselves.  Lecky  and  his  wife 
spent  many  pleasant  hours  in  the  genial  society  of 
that  remarkable  man,  the  old  Duke  de  Sermoneta, 
and  of  Mr.  Story,  the  American  sculptor,  and  his 
family.  They  saw  M.  Minghetti  and  his  charming 
wife,  who  had  expressed  a  wish  to  know  Lecky;  and 
they  were  introduced  to  Cardinal  Antonelli,  who  dwelt 
on  the  Pope's  imprisonment,  and  to  whom  Lecky 
retorted  that  it  was  at  least  the  most  beautiful  prison 
in  the  world. 

(To  Mr.  Charles  Bowen.)  Rome:  March  8,  1872.  — 
'We  saw  here,  among  other  people,  General  Sherman, 
the  American  Commander-in-Chief.  He  is  going  to 
Egypt,  which  does  not  look  as  if  he  feared  a  war  and 
he  says  the  U.S.A.  have  only  28,000  men  under  arms. 
All  American  accounts  I  hear  represent  the  Southern 
States  as  quite  unreconciled,  and  as  the  Ajiiericans 


100  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

have  very  little  fleet  I  do  not  tRink  we  have  much  to 
fear  from  that  quarter.  We  see  a  great  many  people 
here,  Italians  as  well  as  EngUsh,  some  of  the  former 
rather  interesting.  The  Pope  and  AntonelU  (the 
latter  of  whom  I  have  seen)  remain  "prisoners"  in 
the  Vatican,  and  as  when  the  cat's  away  the  mice 
will  play,  Rome  is  swarming  with  "Evangelists"  of 
different  descriptions  —  Gavazzi  among  the  rest. 
There  was  a  great  discussion  a  few  weeks  ago  about 
whether  St.  Peter  was  ever  at  Rome,  which  was 
remarkable  from  the  Pope  having  authorised  Cathohc 
priests  to  take  part  in  it.  An  authorised  report  has 
been  pubhshed,  and  all  the  little  boys  in  the  streets 
are  crying,  "La  venuta  di  San  Pietro  in  Roma!"  as 
if  he  had  but  just  arrived.  There  was  also  a  Bible 
meeting  got  up,  chiefly  by  EngUsh,  at  which  Pere 
Hyacinthe  made  a  very  eloquent  speech.^  I  fancy  in 
politics  people  are  here  much  divided  and  by  no  means 
enthusiastic;  and  no  wonder,  for  with  the  new  Govern- 
ment they  have  got  an  income  tax  of  over  13  per 
cent.,  extending  so  low  as  to  include  quite  small 
shopkeepers,  besides  a  very  severe  tax  on  ground 
corn,  which  reaches  the  very  poorest  class  —  all  this 
in  time  of  perfect  peace,  and  with  all  this  an  annual 
deficit  of  some  four  milHons  sterhng.  Italian  unity 
brings  with  it  many  blessings,  but  it  is  certainly  bought 
at  a  very  high  price.  We  know  Minghetti,  who  is  one 
of  the  leading  Ministers  here,  and  who  is  kind  enough 


'  It     was     the     first     Bible  made    a    most    eloquent    and 

meeting   ever   held   in    Rome.  really     touching     speech. 

'It  was  curious  to  see,'  wrote  Everyone     who     knows     him 

Lecky      to      Mr.      Knightley  seems  to  be  persuaded  of  his 

Chetwode,     March     8,     1872.  purity  and  gentleness  of  char- 

'  Gavazzi  spoke  with  a  great  acter,    but   his   position   as   a 

display  of  physical  force,  but  Catholic  priest  outside  Cathol- 

what    was    really    interesting  icisra  is  very  anomalous.' 
was     Pere     Hyacinthe,     who 


MAZZINI   COMMEMORATION  101 

to  be  very  enthusiastic  about  my  books,  and  we  thus 
hear  a  good  deal  about  Italian  politics.' 

They  saw  the  bust  of  Mazzini  carried  to  the  Capitol 
to  be  placed  among  those  of  the  great  Italians. 

(To  the  Same.)  March  22,  1872. —'We  had  last 
Sunday  a  wonderful  demonstration  here  to  Mazzini's 
memory.  The  procession  along  the  Corso  was,  I 
should  think,  nearly  as  long  and  quite  as  well  organ- 
ised as  the  great  reform  processions  in  London  a  few 
years  since.  It  took  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour 
marching  by  each  point,  was  accompanied  by  banners 
and  a  bust  of  Mazzini,  and  ended  on  the  Capitol  under 
the  statue  of  Marcus  AureUus  (whose  extended  arm 
seemed  stretched  out  to  bless  the  crowd).' 

After  describing  the  scene  to  Mr.  Knightley  Chet- 
wode  (March  27,  1872),  he  adds: 

'The  sight  was  a  very  imposing  one  when  one  thinks 
that  it  was  done  in  the  very  metropolis  of  Catholicism, 
in  honour  of  one  of  Catholicism's  bitterest  enemies, 
after  twenty  years  of  the  close.st  despotism,  during 
which  the  main  object  of  the  Government  was  to  pre- 
vent the  faintest  inculcation  of  Liberal  opinions  of  any 
kind'  in  Rome,  very  wonderful,  too,  considering  that 
Mazzini  did  it  all  by  his  pen  from  a  foreign  country. 
Pere  Hyacinthe  is  also  here,  and  began  yesterday  a 
course  of  lectures  on  the  reform  of  Catholicism.  Per- 
haps he  may  in  course  of  time  become  definite,  but 
the  one  I  heard  was  mere  rhetoric  and  sentiment  — ■ 
very  graceful  and  very  amiable,  but  doing  nothing 
either  to  define  or  to  defend  his  very  untenable  posi- 
tion. .  .  .  One  does  not  clearly  see  what  is  going  to 
become  of  religion  in  Catholic  countries,  for  Cathol- 
icism is  rapidly  becoming  incredible  to  all  intelligent 
minds.  I  suspect  the  prospects  of  Protestantism  are 
now  better  than  they  have  ever  been  since  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century.     All  political  changes  tend  to 


102  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

make  Protestant  nations  more  and  more  the  rulers 
and  the  magnets  of  the  world,  and  the  Infallibility 
decree  is  uniting  very  large  bodies  of  Catholics  in  the 
same  direction.' 

Lecky  read  a  good  deal  that  winter  for  his  new 
book,  but  he  did  little  or  no  writing.  '  I  am  reading  a 
great  quantity  of  politics,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth 
(November  9,  1871),  'and  am  just  now  a  good  deal 
pleased  with  Lord  Grey's  book  on  Parhamentary 
Reform,  which  I  had  never  before  read,  and  which 
seems  to  me  to  deserve  a  greater  reputation  than  it 
had.  But  to  my  mind  nothing  is  comparable  to 
Burke,  especially  his  "French  Revolution.'" 

About  the  purpose  of  his  new  book  he  wrote: 

Florence :  January  24,  1872.  —  '  I  want  greatly  to 
write  a  kind  of  analytic  history  explaining  as  well  as 
describing  about  English  politics  for  the  last  century 
and  a  half,  and  have  read  a  great  deal  for  it  and  made 
quantities  of  notes;  but  this,  which  has  been  long 
suspended,  will  not,  I  suppose,  really  get  on  again 
till  I  am  in  England.' 

'The  vanity  of  hterature  is  very  true,'  he  subse- 
quently writes  from  Rome.  'Still,  the  end  of  Hfe  is 
to  bring  out  one's  capacities,  and  literature  is  the 
readiest  and,  on  the  whole,  most  satisfactory  way  of 
accompUshing  it,  and  the  power  of  expressing  in  a 
single  work  a  long  train  of  connected  thinking  is,  I 
think,  one  of  the  highest  of  all  pleasures.  I  think  I 
could  write  a  tolerably  good  book  on  English  poUtics.' 

In  the  spring  Lecky  returned  to  Albemarle  Street, 
and  '  found  my  dear  library  looking  as  well  as  could  be 
expected  after  its  long  widowhood';*  and  he  after- 
wards joined  his  wife  on  a  short  visit  to  Holland.  The 
rest  of  the  summer  was  spent  with  his  relations.    Lady 

'  To  his  wife. 


RETURN   TO    ENGLAND  103 

Camwath  had  given  up  the  Bagncres  home  when  the 
war  broke  out,  and  she  and  her  family  were  now 
spending  the  summer  at  Torquay.  Her  son,  Captain 
Lecky  of  tlie  78th  Highlanders,  who  had  returned 
from  Canada  with  the  germs  of  consumption,  was 
giving  his  relations  much  anxiety,  and  the  presence 
of  the  elder  brother  was  a  great  support. 

In  the  autumn  of  that  year  he  and  his  wife  were 
asked  to  meet  Queen  Sophia  of  the  Netherlands  at 
Knowsley,  and  after  that  time  an  almost  yearly  visit 
was  paid  to  that  hospitable  house,  either  in  the  autumn 
or  at  Christmas.  The  late  Lady  Derby  was  in  some 
ways  a  remarkable  woman.  Very  shy  and  reserved 
in  general  company,  she  was  extremely  genial  in  the 
society  of  those  for  whom  she  cared.  She  was  keenly 
interested  in  science,  art,  literature,  politics,  and  she 
had  originality  and  insight.  Lecky  had  much  admira- 
tion for  Lord  Derby,  for  his  high-mindedness,  his 
well-balanced  practical  judgment,  his  simple,  un- 
worldly tastes,  which  his  wife  shared.  Neither  of 
them  had  any  social  ambitions,  and,  though  bound  to 
do  hospitality  in  the  sumptuous  fashion  of  a  great 
English  house,  they  kept  clear  of  all  the  idols  of 
modern  society,  and  there  was  an  old-world  atmos- 
phere about  them  which  had  a  great  charm. 

In  the  autumn  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lecky  went  to  London 
with  the  intention  of  settling  there.  He  now  felt 
pretty  confident  that  if  he  continued  well,  with  a 
quiet  life  among  books,  he  could  write  a  book  quite 
as  good  as  the  'Morals'  and  'Rationalism.'  The 
Dean  of  Westminster  and  Lady  Augusta  Stanley 
suggested  the  house  over  the  porch  of  Dean's  Yard, 
and  had  Lecky  at  that  time  been  in  Parhament  it 
would  have  been  in  some  respects  an  ideal  residence, 
but  under  the  circumstances  a  house  in  Onslow  Gar- 


104  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

dens,  close  to  his  stepmother,  who  settled  in  London 
at  the  same  time,  suited  them  better.  In  the  early- 
spring  of  1873  Lecky's  books  and  furniture  were 
moved  into  it  from  Albemarle  Street,  and  it  became 
his  permanent  home. 

There  was  in  those  days  in  London,  in  the  winter, 
a  very  pleasant  intellectual  society,  most  of  whose 
members  have  long  since  passed  away.  Sir  Charles 
Lyell,  the  great  geologist  and  his  wife,  —  one  of  the 
accomplished  Horner  sisters  —  were  among  the  first 
to  welcome  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lecky  in  their  house  in 
Harley  Street.  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  the  typical  bard 
with  the  fine  head,  long  beard,  and  slow  and  impres- 
sive diction,  and  his  clever  and  charming  Irish  wife 
gathered  round  them  a  circle  of  old  friends,  among 
whom  were  Lord  and  Lady  Minto  ^  and  their  sons. 
Sir  James  and  Lady  Stephen,  Sir  Frederick  and  Lady 
Elliot,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Leslie  Stephen,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Brookfield,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Earle,^  Miss  Thackeray, 
Miss  Cobbe,  Mr.  Spedding,  Mr.  Greg,  Mr.  Browning, 
Mr.  Venables.  The  poet  Tennyson  and  his  wife  and 
Lord  and  Lady  Russell  used  to  come  up  for  some 
months.  Lord  Russell's  eldest  son,  Lord  Amberley, 
and  his  wife  —  the  daughter  of  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished women  of  her  time,  Lady  Stanley  of  Alder- 
ley  —  were  then  living  in  London  and  taking  an  active 
part  in  all  progressive  movements.  Both  were  great 
friends  of  Lecky,  who  deplored  their  early  deaths. 
The  Deanery  of  Westminster  was  a  centre  where 
remarkable  people  of  all  shades  of  opinion  met;  and 
Mr.  Reeve,  the  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  and 

1  Lady    Minto    wrote     The  ^  Mrs.  Earle,  author  of  Pot- 
Life  of  the  First  Earl  of  Minto  pourri  from    a    Surrey    Gar- 
and    a    Memoir    of  the    Right  den. 
Honourable  Hugh  Elliot. 


LONDON   SOCIETY  105 

Mrs.  Reeve  received  in  their  house  some  of  the  most 
distinguished  members  of  EngUsh  and  French  society. 
Lady  William  Russell,  who  had  lived  a  long  and 
interesting  Hfe  in  many  countries,  was  at  home  in  the 
evenings  to  a  small  circle,  and  the  hospitable  tradi- 
tions of  the  house  were  continued  after  her  death  by 
her  son.  Lord  Arthur  Russell,  and  his  wife.  Other 
pleasant  hosts  and  hostesses  were  Sir  Henry  Holland,* 
Lady  Stanley  of  Alderley,  Sir  Frederick  and  Lady 
Pollock,  Sir  Lewis  and  Lady  Mallet,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
George  Trevelyan,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Simpson.^  Sir 
Charles  Newton,  who  by  his  personal  initiative  and  his 
excavations  had  given  such  an  impetus  to  the  study 
of  archseology,  was  much  appreciated  in  this  society, 
which  included  also  Mr.  Charles  VilUers,  who  had  all 
the  social  gifts  of  his  family,  and  Mr.  Kinglake,  whose 
quiet  humour  deUghted  his  hearers.  Among  men 
of  science,  Professor  Huxley,  Professor  Tyndall, 
and  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  were  in  their  zenith:  Huxley, 
brilliant,  versatile,  combative;  Tyndall,  keen,  enthu- 
siastic, resourceful,  with  all  the  L-ish  charm  of  manner 
and  conversation;  Herbert  Spencer,  combining  with 
his  uncompromising  logical  intellect  the  frankness 
and  simpUcity  of  a  child,  and  losing  no  opportunity, 
even  in  futile  conversation,  to  cull  materials  for  build- 
ing up  his  all-embracing  philosophy.  The  Friday 
evening  lectures  at  the  Royal  Institution  seemed  to 
play  a  somewhat  more  important  part  in  London  life 
at  that  time  than  they  do  now,  and  even  Lecky,  who 
did  not  generally  care  for  lectures,   keenly  enjoyed 


>  The  father  of  Lord  Kuuts-  and  wrote  among  other  things 

ford.  Recollections  of  M.  and  Mme. 

2  Mrs.     Simpson     was     the  Mohl. 
daughter  of  Mr.  Nassau  Senior, 


106  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Huxley  and  Tyndall's  admirable  expositions.  A 
genial  atmosphere  and  a  total  absence  of  ostentation 
made  intercourse  easy  and  pleasant;  and  it  was  the 
kind  of  society  Lecky  liked  the  best,  and  where  he  was 
the  most  appreciated. 

Mr.  Carlyle  now  rarely  showed  himself  in  society; 
the  death  of  his  wife  had  cast  a  lasting  gloom  over 
him,  but  he  went  occasionally  to  see  his  friends  and 
liked  them  to  visit  him.  He  had  from  the  first  been 
very  friendly  to  Lecky,  and  expressed  the  wish  to  see 
him  often,  and  he  gave  his  wife  'many  welcomes  to 
England'  and  extended  his  unfailing  kindness  to  her. 
Lecky  admired  him  as  a  genius  and  a  moral  force, 
but  he  was  in  no  way  a  disciple  of  his,  and  anyone 
who  did  not  reflect  Mr.  Carlyle's  views  never  wholly 
escaped  his  criticism.  Their  relations,  however,  were 
most  amicable,  and  a  weekly  walk  or  drive  became  an 
institution.  Once  only  a  shadow  passed  between 
them.  Mr.  Carlyle,  knowing  Lecky's  views,  had 
been  inveighing  in  his  emphatic  monologue  fashion 
against  Ireland  and  the  Irish.  This  was  particularly 
distasteful  to  Lecky,  who  always  resented  any  attack 
on  what  he  cared  for,  and  he  stayed  away  longer 
than  usual  from  Cheyne  Row.  Though  no  explana- 
tion was  given,  Mr.  Carlyle  was  too  acute  not  to  under- 
stand, and  he  showed  himself  so  much  concerned  that 
Lecky,  who  had  no  rancour  in  his  disposition,  and 
who,  moreover,  was  very  devoted  to  Mr.  Carlyle, 
resumed  his  visits;  the  intercourse  went  on  smoothly 
as  before,  and  the  offence  was  not  repeated.  Mr. 
Carlyle  always  praised  Lecky's  kindness,  and  used  to 
say  in  his  old  age  that  he  was  as  well  taken  care  of 
during  the  drives  and  walks  as  if  he  had  been  a  young 
lady.  He  was  the  kindest  and  most  gracious  of  hosts, 
always  insisting  as  long  as  he  was  able  on  taking  his 


carlyle's  conversation  107 

lady  visitors  himself  to  the  door;  and  if  one  had  not 
called  for  some  time  he  used  to  say  in  a  gentle,  re- 
proachful way,  '  You  have  become  quite  a  stranger 
here.'  This  aspect  of  Carlyle  is  so  httle  known,  and 
a  certain  impatience  which  he  exhibited  in  his  irri- 
table moods  has  been  so  much  emphasised,  that  it  is 
well  to  recall  the  other  side  of  his  character.  In 
some  notes  on  Mr.  Carlyle  in  one  of  Lecky's  'Com- 
monplace Books'  he  says: 

'  His  conversation  was  certainly  of  its  kind  immeasur- 
ably the  most  beautiful,  singular,  and  impressive  I 
have  ever  known,  and  two  of  the  best  talkers  of  their 
day,  Mr.  Venables  and  Mr.  Brookfield,  who  knew  well 
the  best  hterary  society  of  London  for  some  forty 
years,  said  that  it  was  in  their  time  wholly  unrivalled. 
One  of  its  charms  (which  I  have  not  seen  noticed)  was 
a  singularly  musical  voice,  a  voice  peculiarly  fitted  for 
pathos,  and  this  (to  me,  at  least)  quite  took  away 
anything  grotesque  in  the  very  strong  Scotch  accent. 
It  also  gave  it  a  softness  and  a  charm  which  is  wanting 
in  his  writings.  The  latter-day  pamphlets  seem  to 
me  to  represent  better  than  anything  else  his  conversa- 
tion. I  have  heard  great  parts  of  the  "Shooting 
Niagara"  from  him  before  it  was  pubUshed.  It  was 
never  for  an  instant  commonplace.  The  whole  dic- 
tion was  always  original  and  intensely  vivid,  and  it 
was  more  saturated  and  interlaced  with  metaphor 
than  any  other  conversation  I  have  ever  heard.  It 
was  a  conversation  which  was  pecuUarly  difficult  to 
report,  for  it  was  not  epigrammatic  but  continuous, 
and  very  much  of  the  charm  lay  in  the  extraordinary 
felicities  of  his  expressions,  in  the  vividness  of  his 
epithets,  in  his  unrivalled  power  of  etching  out  a 
subject  by  a  few  words  so  as  to  make  it  stand  in  prom- 
inent relief.  He  was  the  very  greatest  of  word- 
painters.  It  was  always,  as  Sir  Henry  Taylor  said, 
"the  vision  which  the  prophet  Isaiah  saw."     What 


108  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

Johnson  said  of  Burke,  that  no  man  could  talk  with 
him  for  five  minutes  under  a  porch  without  perceiving 
that  he  was  a  great  man,  was  most  Uteraily  true  of 
Carlyle.  The  intense  individuality  of  his  expressions, 
his  thoughts,  his  imagination,  was  always  apparent, 
and  his  talking  was  never  more  wonderful  than  when 
walking  alone  with  one  companion,  for  whom  he  cer- 
tainly made  no  effort  of  display,  whom  indeed  he 
seemed  sometimes  almost  to  forget.  His  conversa- 
tion was  mainly  monologue  and,  in  a  greater  degree 
than  any  other  talkers,  soUloquy.  Not  slow  enough 
to  be  wearisome  or  to  give  any  sense  of  effort,  yet  so 
fully  and  perfectly  articulated  that  every  sentence 
seemed  to  tell,  it  streamed  on  by  the  hour  in  a  clear, 
low  voice,  glittering  with  metaphor  and  picturesque 
epithets  and  turns  of  phrases  of  the  truest  eloquence. 
Though  chiefly  monologue  he  had  on  occasions  a 
wonderful  quickness  and  dexterity  of  argumentative 
repartee,  seizing  in  an  instant  a  weak  or  unguarded 
point,  and  his  language  seemed  to  kindle  as  it  flowed. 
Never  was  such  a  master  of  invective,  welUng  and 
surging  up  in  an  irresistible  geyser  at  opposition.  He 
was  also  the  most  pathetic  of  talkers  —  indeed,  the 
only  talker  I  have  ever  heard  who  was  really  pathetic. 
Pictures  of  his  early  Hfe,  or  of  the  sorrows  of  those  he 
had  known,  or  scenes  from  history  were  related  in  a 
tone  and  with  a  manner  that  drew  tears  to  the  eye. 
On  religious  matters  his  language  had  a  sublimity 
and  an  air  of  inspiration  which  always  reminded  me 
(and  many  others)  of  what  a  Hebrew  prophet  must 
have  been;  and  sometimes  when  very  earnest  he  had  a 
strangely  solemn  way  of  turning  and  looking  full  in 
the  hearer's  face  for  a  second  before  speaking,  which 
added  extraordinarily  to  the  impressiveness  of  what 
he  said.  I  have  never  seen  this  in  anyone  else,  and  it 
always  reminds  me  of  Luke  xx.  17.  His  knowledge 
and  memory  were  very  great,  but  of  a  peculiar  kind, 
and  his  mind  was  like  the  electric  lamp,  which  throws 


IRISH    UNIVERSITY    EDUCATION  109 

out  both  strong  lights  and  deep  shadows.  There 
were  large  tracts  of  subjects,  well-known  books,  large 
interests  of  which  he  was  utterly  ignorant  —  much 
more  so  than  most  educated  men  — •  and  these  were 
not  always  the  subjects  on  which  he  was  least  dog- 
matic' .  .  . 

In  the  winter  of  1873  Irish  university  education 
was  on  its  trial,  and  Lecky,  who  was  always  watching 
the  interests  of  his  own  university,  wrote  to  the  Times 
in  defence  of  Trinity  College  and  of  Fawcett's  scheme, 
which  abolished  the  last  remaining  tests  —  those  for 
fellowships.  A  few  words  of  warning  from  the  letter 
may  be  appropriately  quoted : 

'To  destroy  the  prestige  and  position  of  Trinity 
College  would  be  to  drive  the  ablest  Irishmen  more 
and  more  to  the  English  universities,  and  thus  more 
and  more  to  denationalise  the  talent  of  Ireland.  .  .  . 
It  is  almost  the  only  corporation  in  the  country  which 
is  at  once  eminently  national  and  eminently  loyal. 
Its  education  is  probably  not  inferior  to  that  of  the 
Enghsh  universities,  and  there  can  be  no  reasonable 
doubt  that  if  it  is  suffered  to  remain  national,  while 
its  rehgious  disqualifications  are  abohshed,  its  useful- 
ness will  be  immeasurably  increased. 

'To  destroy  such  an  institution,  or  to  degrade  it  to 
a  subordinate  position,  would  be  one  of  the  greatest 
calamities  that  could  be  inflicted  on  the  country,  and 
the  act  would  have  a  peculiar  baseness  if  it  were 
perpetrated  by  that  Liberal  party  which  has  for  gen- 
erations made  the  establishment  of  united  and  unsec- 
tarian  education  in  England  one  of  the  main  objects 
of  its  pohcy.' 

A  few  days  later  Mr.  Gladstone's  Bill  was  brought 
in,  and  though  at  first  his  eloquence  threw  a  glamour 
over  it,  the  more  people  looked  into  it  the  less  they 


110  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

were  pleased  with  it;  and  it  was  finally  thrown  out 
and  Fawcett's  Act  was  passed. 

That  same  winter  Lecky  published  in  Macmillan's 
Magazine  a  review  of  Mr.  Froude's  first  volume  of 
the  '  English  in  Ireland,'  and  when  the  next  two 
volumes  appeared  he  reviewed  them  in  the  June  num- 
ber of  1874.  The  divergences  between  the  two  his- 
torians are  too  well  known  to  require  being  dwelt  on 
here.  While  yielding,  as  he  said,  to  no  one  in  admira- 
tion of  the  many  great  and  splendid  quaUties  which 
Mr.  Froude  has  brought  to  the  study  of  history,  his 
wide  research,  his  eloquence,  his  consummate  artistic 
skill,  Lecky  severely  criticised  his  methods  and  his 
defence  of  the  penal  laws  and  of  the  persecutions 
which  the  Roman  Catholics  in  Ireland  had  to  undergo. 
His  whole  nature  revolted  against  the  spirit  of  intol- 
erance of  which  Mr.  Froude  was  the  advocate,  and 
the  use  he  made  of  his  authorities.  '  I  wish,'  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  Booth,  'that  I  did  not  get  into  quite  such  a 
vehement  state  of  mind  about  these  matters  as  I 
do.' 

Though  he  did  not  like  reviewing  the  book,  he 
thought  it  so  mischievous,  so  sophistical,  and  so  insult- 
ing to  Ireland  and  Irishmen  that  he  felt  it  a  kind  of 
duty  to  do  so.  The  articles  met  with  a  great  deal  of 
appreciation.  His  friend  Dr.  Bence  Jones,  secretary 
of  the  Royal  Institution,  wrote  (January  6,  1873) :  '  I 
read  your  article  in  Macmillan  last  night,  and  like  it 
exceedingly  in  every  way.  In  thought,  in  language, 
in  tone,  it  is  all  that  your  friends  could  wish,  and  it 
ought  to  be  prefixed  as  a  preface  to  the  first  volume 
of  Froude's  book  by  everyone  who  buys  his  book.' 

Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  wrote  from  Melbourne 
after  the  first  part  of  the  review  appeared  (March  15, 
1873) : 


REVIEW   OF   FROUDE's   BOOK  lU 

*I  have  just  read  in  Macmillan  your  paper  on 
Froude's  last  book,  and  I  cannot  refrain  from  thanking 
you  for  it.  It  is  such  an  answer  as  will  satisfy  just 
and  reasonable  men,  whatever  may  be  their  national 
or  party  prepossessions.  ...  If,  like  Mr.  Froude, 
you  had  "come  to  the  succour  of  the  stronger  party" 
you  would  have  had  more  applause  from  the  critics, 
but  you  would  have  missed  the  silent  gratitude  of 
men  in  many  and  far-divided  countries  who  may 
never  see  your  face.' 

After  reading  the  last  review.  Professor  J.  E.  Cairnes, 
the  poUtical  economist,  wrote  (June  5,  1874) : 

'  I  cannot  help  sending  you  a  few  Hues  —  I  trust  I 
am  not  taldng  an  unwarrantable  liberty  in  doing  so  — 
to  say  with  what  admiration  and  gratitude  I  have 
read  your  review  in  the  current  number  of  Macmillan 
of  Froude's  ''Enghsh  in  Ireland."  I  had  just  fin- 
ished reading  the  work,  and  have  rarely  risen  from  a 
book  with  stronger  feelings  of  indignation  and  dis- 
gust. So  greatly,  indeed,  was  my  equanimity  dis- 
turbed that,  observing  the  almost  universal  favour 
with  which  until  the  appearance  of  your  article  it 
had  been  received  by  the  EngUsh  press,  I  had  quite 
resolved  to  attempt  something  myself  in  the  way  of 
criticism,  or  at  least  of  protest,  against  its  gross 
perversions  of  history  and  malignant  attempts  to 
stir  up  the  worst  and  most  dangerous  passions  of  a 
sensitive  and  excitable  people.  But  having  read  your 
article,  I  feel  that  it  would  be  idle  to  say  another 
word,  and  that  the  best  thing  that  can  now  be  done 
is  to  promote  its  circulation  far  and  wide,  so  that  the 
antidote  may  be  at  hand  wherever  the  poison  has  been 
taken.  You  have  indeed  done  your  work  in  mas- 
terly fashion,  and,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so,  with 
a  restrained  dignity  of  manner  and  a  charm  of  style 
which  contrast  most  favourably  with  the  literary 
qualities  of  the  writer  you  review.' 


112  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Lecky  strongly  encouraged  Professor  Cairnes  to 
carry  out  his  first  plan  and  write  a  review,  but  he 
replied : 

'  I  quite  recognise  the  force  of  what  you  say  as  to 
the  importance  of  several  independent  refutations. 
But  the  difficulty  I  feel  is  that  you  have  seized  so 
completely  all  the  strongest  points  of  the  case  and 
put  them  with  such  admirable  force  that  one  can  do 
little  more  than  echo  your  arguments  in  words  which, 
as  they  are  not  the  same,  can  only  be  weaker.' 

Professor  Cairnes,  however,  ultimately  expressed 
his  views  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  of  August  1874. 

(To  Miss  Alice  Chetwode.)  Athenceum  Club:  Jan- 
uary 13,  1873.  —  'We  shall  probably  get  into  our  new 
house  in  March.  Till  then  we  are  at  72  Park  Street. 
I  am  very  deep  in  Methodist  Hterature  and  not  alto- 
gether satisfiecl  with  what  I  am  doing.  My  article  ^ 
appears  to  have  attracted  a  good  deal  of  notice  in 
various  quarters,  and  will,  I  hope,  have  some  good 
influence.  The  Irish  side  of  things  is  in  general  so 
deplorably  represented  at  present.  Father  Burke, 
who  is  very  amusing  and  popular,  appears  to  have 
the  vaguest  possible  notion  of  the  difference  between 
fact  and  fiction;  and  Mr.  Prendergast,  author  of  the 
"Cromwellian  Settlement  in  Ireland,"  and  really  a 
very  competent  scholar,  has  been  writing  a  series  of 
half-frantic  letters  in  which  he  describes  Froude  as  a 
viper,  cold-blooded  hypocrite,  a  bloodthirsty  fanatic, 
&c.,  &c.  I  have  no  doubt  what  I  have  written  will 
bitterly  offend  Froude,  which  is  very  disagreeable  to 
me,  as  we  are  old  friends,  see  each  other  constantly, 
and  are  to  be  near  neighbours.  F.  is  so  disappointed 
with  his  reception  in  America  that  he  has  cancelled 
his  engagements  and  must  by  this  time  have  returned. 
...  I  have  been  making  the  acquaintance  of  a  very 

>  On  Mr.  Froude's  'English  in  Ireland,'  in  Macmillan's  Mag- 
azine, January  1873. 


FAMILY   BEREAVEMENTS  113 

enthusiastic  Irish  lady  of  your  persuasion,  a  Miss 
Wyse  (related  to  the  minister  at  Athens).  She  Uves 
in  the  upper  part  of  a  house,  the  ground  floor  of  which 
is  occupied  by  a  great  friend  of  mine,'  and  she  seems  to 
have  looked  upon  me  with  extreme  horror  till  my 
"  Life  of  O'Connell "  was  put  into  her  hands,  when  she 
so  far  relented  as  to  say,  "  I  am  really  afraid  I  might 
like  Mr.  L."  My  article  completed  her  conversion, 
and  she  insisted  upon  coming  down  to  make  my 
acquaintance,  and  has  since  assured  me  that  she  felt 
personally  quite  ready  to  have  shot  Mr.  Froude  till 
she  read  and  was  pacified  by  it!  which  I  consider 
rather  a  triumph.' 

In  the  spring  of  1873  a  domestic  sorrow  fell  upon 
his  family  through  the  death  of  Lord  Carnwath,  at 
Harrow,  from  measles,  at  the  age  of  fourteen.  He 
was  the  son  of  Lecky's  stepmother  by  her  second 
marriage,  and  had  succeeded  to  the  title  in  1867  on 
the  death  of  his  father.  He  was  an  exceptionally 
fine  and  attractive  character,  and  like  a  younger 
brother  to  Lecky,  who  felt  the  loss  keenly;  but  his 
own  regrets  were  merged  in  a  mother's  greater  sorrow. 
With  all  the  reserve  of  his  nature,  he  possessed  to  a 
rare  degree  the  power  of  throwing  himself  into  the 
feelings  of  others  and  giving  that  tactful  sympathy 
which  does  more  to  soothe  than  anything  else.  *  God 
bless  you,'  wrote  his  stepmother  at  the  time;  'I  trust 
that  you  may  be  able  fully  to  know  the  intense  bless- 
ing and  comfort  you  are  to  me.  ...  I  do  thank  God 
from  my  heart  for  it.  .  .  .' 

Little  more  than  a  year  after  his  stepbrother.  Cap- 
tain Lecky,  of  the  78th  Highlanders,  died  of  consump- 
tion, and  was  laid  in  the  same  grave  at  Harrow.  It 
was  during  that  year  that  Lecky  wrote  in  his  'Com- 
monplace Book'  some  of  the  thoughts  on  death  which 
have  since  appeared  in  the  'Map  of  Life.' 

>  Miss  Elliot,  daughter  of  the  late  Dean  of  Bristol. 
9 


CHAPTER   V 

1873-1878. 

Dutch  country  life  —  Ireland  —  Views  on  a  seat  in  Parliament 

—  A  Home  Rule  debate  —  Working  habits  —  British  Mu- 
seum —  Record  Office  —  The  Literary  Society  —  The  Club  — 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  — -  Professor  Huxley  —  Scheme  of  the 
'  History' — Visit  to  Ireland  —  Irish  friends  —  Reads  MSS.  in 
Dublin  Castle  —  Revises  the  '  History  of  European  Morals  ' 

—  Atlantic  Coast  scenery  —  Speeches  —  Return  to  London 

—  Bulgarian  massacres — Mr.  Gladstone's  Blackheath  speech 

—  Paris  —  St.  James's  Hall  Conference  —  Completion  of  the 
first  two  volumes  of  the  '  History  '  —  Death  of  Queen  Sophia 

—  Death  of  Mr.  Motley  —  St.  Moritz  —  Publication  of  the 
first  two  volumes — Aim  of  the  'History'  —  Appreciative 
letters. 

In  the  summer  of  1873  Lecky  became  more  intimately 
acquainted  with  Holland.  After  the  usual  visit  to 
the  House  in  the  Wood  he  saw  a  good  deal  of  Dutch 
private  country  life.  The  houses  struck  him  as  much 
more  human  institutions,  much  better  both  for  the 
owners  and  for  the  country  than  most  English  ones, 
being  on  a  smaller  scale,  without  the  vast  lawns  and 
parks,  enclosures  of  square  miles  of  land,  and  armies 
of  servants.  At  the  same  time  he  found  they  had  a 
great  deal  of  finished  and  concentrated  beauty,  mag- 
nificent trees,  beautiful  artificial  lakes,  and  extremely 
fine  gardens  and  hothouses;  sometimes  very  fine  pic- 
tures; and  'there  was  a  wonderful  air  of  comfort 
about  it  all.' 

114 


IRELAND  115 

'I  own/  he  writes  from  The  Hague  (July  24,  1873)/ 
'it  staggers  me  a  good  deal  to  see  the  immense  devel- 
opment of  the  country  gentleman's  Hfe  going  on  under 
the  Code  Napoleon,  going  on,  too,  in  the  form  wliich 
strikes  me  as  socially  very  useful.  I  always  had 
thought  that  the  Code  Napoleon  would  have  made 
that  impossible,  and  suspect  that  we  sometimes 
attribute  consequences  to  that  Code  which  are  much 
more  due  to  the  character  of  the  French  among  whom 
we  usually  observe  its  operation.  By  this  time  I 
have  a  very  wide  circle  of  Dutch  acquaintances,  and 
there  is  a  good  deal  interesting  to  be  learnt  among 
them.  We  return  to  London  in  about  a  week,  and 
about  a  fortnight  afterwards  mean  to  go  to  Ireland 
for  five  or  six  weeks.  I  am  working  steadily  at  my 
book,  but  not  by  any  means  satisfied  with  my  progress 
or  sure  that  the  subject  suits  me.  I  want  to  present 
a  picture  of  the  political  changes,  social  and  industrial 
changes,  in  England  in  the  last  century,  to  analyse 
the  different  forces  that  were  at  work,  and  to  esti- 
mate their  good  and  evil  consequences.  It  is  now 
more  than  four  and  a  quarter  years  since  the  appear- 
ance of  my  "Morals,"  and  I  feel  humiliated  at  being 
so  little  advanced,  but  during  that  period  there  was 
one  year  in  which  I  wrote  nothing,  and  another  in 
which  I  did  nothing  except  my  Irish  book.  I  want 
to  be  back  in  London  at  the  beginning  of  October, 
and  to  remain  there  steadily  for  nine  months,  working 
hard.' 

A  very  enjoyable  journey  to  Ireland  was  accom- 
plished in  the  summer.  Lecky  took  his  wife  to  visit 
his  tenants  and  some  of  the  most  beautiful  scenery  of 
Ireland:  Killarney,  Glengariffe,  Cork,  Kilkee,  the 
Cliffs  of  Moher,  Lisdoonvarna,  and  Galway. 

His  views  about  entering  Parliament  had  under- 
gone  a  considerable   change.     At   any  earlier  period 

1  To  Mr.  Booth. 


116  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

(May  1871),  when  there  was  some  question  of  a  disso- 
lution, he  wrote:  ^  'I  fear  I  have  not  yet  quite  suffi- 
ciently schooled  myself  to  help  looking  with  a  rather 
envious  feeling  on  the  actors  on  that  great  stage,  a 
stage  which,  1  fear,  it  will  never  be  my  lot  to  mount.' 
But  now,  in  August  1873,  he  wrote  in  a  letter  to  Mr. 
Booth:  *I  cannot  say  I  at  all  wish  to  go  into  Parlia- 
ment just  now.  My  book  is  a  task  quite  sufficient 
for  what  little  energies  I  possess,  and  Parliament  is 
getting  every  session  less  and  less  interesting.'  ^ 

(To  the  Same.)  Februanj  26,  1874.  —  '  Thanks  for 
what  you  say  about  Parliament,  I  find  now  that  it  is 
a  sort  of  conventional  thing  among  people  I  know  to 
say  they  expect  me  to  stand  for  somewhere,  but  I  am 
not  aware  that  anyone  in  Ireland  even  mentioned  my 
name;  and  people  with  my  mediocrity  of  position  and 
fortune  can  never  get  into  Parliament  unless  they  take 
the  line  of  a  demagogue  or  have  someone  to  help 
them.  No  one  has  ever  really  helped  me,  and  I  do 
not  at  all  feel  inclined  to  make  any  great  sacrifice  for 
Parliament,  though  one  might  like  it  if  it  came  natu- 
rally in  one's  way.  I  cannot  say  I  care  very  much 
about  it,  or  about  any  pending  question,  and  the 
probabilities  are  that  this  ParUament  will  be  a  long 
one,  and  that  by  the  time  it  is  over  I  shall  be  (if  still 
alive)  too  old  to  do  anything  in  a  new  career,  and 
much  too  unambitious  to  care.' 

And,  again,  in  answer  to  the  same  correspondent, 
he  writes  (March  24,  1874) : 

'  Nobody  in  Ireland  wants  me  or  cares  for  me,  and 


1  To  E.  V.  D.  Church.    I  find  myself  quoted, 

^  He   observes  in   the   same  usually  with   warm   approba- 

letter:  'It  is  a  curious  sign  of  tion,  in  nearly  every  page  of 

the  times  that  I  appear  to  be  Eaton's   Bampton  Lectures  on 

turning  into  a  father  of  the  the  Permanence  of  Christianity. 


VIEWS   ON   A   SEAT   IN    PARLIAMENT  117 

I  am  wholly  unambitious  of  Parliamentary  life.  It  is 
one  thing  when  the  majority  of  a  constituency  agrees 
with  your  views  —  is  in  some  degree  proud  of  you 
and  imagines  you  might  do  them  some  honour.  It  is 
quite  another  thing  to  get  in  by  the  division  of  your 
adversaries;  to  know  that  the  majority  of  your  con- 
stituents hate  your  views  and  will  upset  you  on  the 
first  occasion;  to  feel  that  every  single  thing  you  have 
done  in  the  world  is,  in  their  eyes,  an  objection,  not 
a  recommendation.  I  should  have  some  chance  if  I 
had  not  published  a  fine,  and  the  constituents  can 
easily  find  a  candidate  without  the  disqualification  of 
authorship.  I  really  do  not  care  about  any  political 
question  now  impending,  and  have  so  much  to  do  in 
my  own  line  that  it  would  require  a  very  tempting 
opening  to  draw  me  into  the  arena.' 

He  occasionally  went  to  hear  a  debate. 

(To  Mr.  C.  Bowen.)  July  6,  1874.  —  '  I  have  been 
going  to  the  Home  Rule  debate,  which  was  very  amus- 
ing, Butt,  Sullivan,  Lord  Hartington,  Sir  M.  H. 
Beach,  The  O'Donoghue,  O'Connor  Power,  and  Dis- 
raeli speaking  very  well  indeed,  the  others  (including 
Ball)  very  badly.  I  think  the  close  was  the  most 
disgraceful  scene  I  ever  saw,  dead  drunk,  mak- 
ing a  long  speech,  amid  shouts  of  laughter,-  about  how 
he  was  a  member  of  the  great  Latin  race,  called  on 
by  his  name  and  Hneage  to  defend  his  country;  while 

in  the  midst  of  it,  amid  loud  cheers, came  reeling 

in  as  drunk  as  could  be  and  subsided  on  the  floor. 
I  was  told  that  in  this  latter  case  it  was  quite  habitual, 

and  could  only  devoutly  pray  that may  soon  be 

disfranchised  and  not  suffered  to  disgrace  itself  and  its 
country  much  longer.  I  saw  Gavan  Duffy,  who  is 
here,  and  who  interests  me  a  good  deal,  soon  after, 
and  found  him  not  a  Httle  disgusted  with  the  Irish 
representation.' 

He  found  a  London  home  a  very  good  place  for 


118  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

steady  work.  '  I  hardly  think  I  ever  wrote  so  stead- 
ily as  I  have  done  since  in  Onslow  Gardens,'  he  wrote 
on  March  18,  1874.  He  was  a  man  of  very  regular 
habits,  was  always  at  breakfast  at  8.30;  and  when  he 
had  read  the  Times  he  worked  uninterruptedly  most 
mornings  and  for  many  years  in  the  evenings,  but  he 
gave  up  late  hours  in  middle  life.  Although  he  was 
never  robust,  he  had  great  working  power,  but  he 
required  absolute  freedom  from  street  noises  or  neigh- 
bouring pianofortes,  or  interruptions  or  cares,  and  on 
the  whole  he  got  a  fair  amount  of  this  freedom. 

'It  is  the  essential  merit  of  literature,'  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Lea  in  1882,  'that  with  a  little  force  of  will  we 
can  always  measure  and  regulate  our  work  accord- 
ing to  our  strength.  It  is  surprising  how  much  may 
be  done  in  writing  by  moderate  work  steadily  pursued. 
Herbert  Spencer  is  in  this  respect  a  striking  instance. 
Many  years  ago  he  had  a  complete  breakdown,  and 
since  then  he  has  strictly  limited  his  work  to  three 
hours  a  day  and  done  all  his  writing  by  dictation. 
The  essential  thing  is  to  avoid  worry,  which  is  much 
more  trying  than  work.' 

He  was  frequently  asked  to  give  lectures  or  write 
magazine  articles,  but  he  generally  refused.  'It  was 
my  early  aim  in  literature,'  he  wrote  in  his  'Common- 
place Book'  in  1883,  'to  turn  away  from  the  frag- 
mentary and  the  ephemeral  and  to  the  limit  of  my 
capacity  to  embody  my  best  thoughts  in  complete, 
elaborate,  and  well-digested  works  of  enduring  value.' 

The  subject  of  his  'History'  grew  as  he  went  on. 
'I  am  at  present,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  (March  18, 
1874),  'strongly  in  favour  of  appearing  in  print  only 
up  to  the  end  of  George  II.,  and  if  possible  this  time 
next  year.  My  Irish  politics  I  have  a  good  oppor- 
tunity   of    airing   in    a   parallel,    or   rather   contrast, 


WORKING   AT  THE   ' HISTORY'  119 

between  the  Scotch  and  Irish  business,  and  in  one  more 
sketch  (I  earnestly  hope  it  will  be  the  last)  of  the 
penal  laws.' 

But  as  time  advanced  the  date  of  pubhcation 
receded.  'I  find  the  book  I  have  undertaken,'  he 
wrote  to  Mr.  Charles  Bowen  from  Pitlochry  (Sep- 
tember 2,  1874),  'to  be  alps  upon  alps,  the  horizon 
perpetually  extending,  and  certainly  shall  not  be 
able  to  have  two  volumes  ready  before  the  end  of 
next  year,  which  seems  a  long  time;  but  unUmited 
patience  is  the  first  condition  of  doing  anything  really 
worthy  in  history.' 

Through  the  winter  of  1874-1875  he  worked  at 
the  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum. 

'I  find,'  he  writes  on  April  11,  1875,  from  Bourne- 
mouth ^  where  he  had  gone  for  a  few  days'  change  of 
air,  *  they  are  very  well  classified  and  very  easily  to 
be  got  at,  and  I  have  made  a  list  of  about  forty  vol- 
umes, I  think,  chiefly  relating  to  Ireland,  I  must  run 
through,  and  have  done  rather  more  than  half.  When 
I  go  back  I  must  get  an  order  for  the  Record  Office, 
where,  I  am  afraid,  I  may  have  a  great  deal  to  do. 
What  vexes  me  more  than  I  can  say  is  that  I  clearly 
see  it  is  simply  impossible  for  me  to  have  finished  my 
two  volumes  by  the  end  of  the  year,  and  this  implies 
that  they  will  not  come  out  till  the  following  Novem- 
ber. History  is  so  long  and  life  is  so  short,  and  some 
three  weeks  ago  I  passed  my  thirty-seventh  birthday 
—  a  great  age.' 

He  was  afraid  sometimes  that  the  subject  did  not 
suit  him  as  well  as  former  subjects,  and  he  was  apt 
to  get  low,  especially  when  he  took  a  holiday.  '  Do 
you   know,'    he   writes    to    Mr.    Booth    in   the    same 


'  To  Mr.  Booth. 


120  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

letter,  'the  story  of  Theophrastus,  who,  having  got  to 
his  hundredth  year,  was  persuaded  on  the  occasion  of 
some  family  festivity  to  spend  a  day  without  work, 
and  it  was  too  much  for  him,  and  he  died? '  He  found, 
however,  a  pleasant  relaxation  in  the  society  that 
he  liked.  In  the  spring  of  1873  he  had  been  elected  a 
member  of  the  Literary  Society,  a  dining  club  of 
eminent  men  in  various  walks  of  life,  of  which  Mr. 
Spencer  H.  Walpole,  former  Home  Secretary,  was  the 
president,  and  Mr.  Henry  Reeve  the  treasurer.  In 
the  following  spring  a  very  distinguished  and  exclu- 
sive body,  'The  Club,'  founded  by  Johnson,  Burke, 
Goldsmith,  and  Reynolds,  elected  him  one  of  their 
members,  an  honour  which  he  duly  appreciated.  He 
also  Uked  seeing  his  friends  at  his  own  house. 

'I  have  been  seeing,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  'rather 
more  lately  than  I  have  done  before  of  Herbert  Spen- 
cer, who  (with  Huxley)  dined  with  us  a  short  time 
ago,  and  whom  I  think  very  curious  and  interesting, 
though  very  wrong-headed.  He  was  giving  such  a 
multitude  of  the  most  ingenious  scientific  reasons  to 
show  that  modern  painting  is  much  better  than  that 
of  the  time  of  Raphael,  that  modern  sculpture  is 
much  better  than  that  of  the  Greeks,  that  Shakespeare 
could  have  written  so  much  better  had  his  compositions 
been  based  upon  an  accurate  knowledge  of  psychol- 
ogy. What  to  me  is  most  amazing  about  him  is  that 
he  says  there  is,  and  for  many  years  past  has  been, 
something  the  matter  with  his  brain,  and  that  he  can 
never  read  more  than  one  hour  at  a  time  or  work  alto- 
gether more  than  three  in  the  day.  He  has  written 
all  his  books  in  this  state.  They  have  all  been  dic- 
tated; his  reading  is  chiefly  done  by  secretaries,  and 
he  spends  much  of  his  afternoon  playing  billiards  at 
the  Athenffium,  because  he  says  he  must  find  some- 
thing to  do  to  while  away  the  time.     He  says  reading 


HUXLEY   AND   HERBIOIIT   SPENCER  121 

the  most  abstruse  and  reading  the  Hghtest  book  is  to 
him  just  the  same.  I  think,  considering  all  he  has 
done,  this  is  quite  unique  in  literary  history.  He  has 
an  odd  way  of  making  his  own  knowledge  and  habits 
the  measure  of  all  sound  education.  For  example,  he 
assured  my  wife  that  it  was  a  perfect  waste  of  time 
learning  languages;  for  his  own  part,  he  is  hapj)y  to  say 
he  never  could  be  brought  to  learn  any  except  a  smat- 
tering of  French.  He  thinks  people  should  read  less 
and  think  more;  that  much  reading  is  usually  a  mis- 
take. After  the  ladies  had  gone  up,  my  philosophers 
(Huxley  and  Spencer)  got  into  a  most  animated  dis- 
pute about  the  inferiority  of  women  in  every  respect, 
both,  indeed,  asserting  it,  but  Huxley  attributed  it 
chiefly  to  the  struggle  for  ascendency  in  the  first  human 
stage;  Spencer  to  the  expenditure  of  forces  in  genera- 
tion. Huxley  is  very  strongly  of  opinion  that  men 
are  greatly  superior  to  women,  not  only  intellectually, 
but  also  morally  and  in  point  of  beauty,  which  must 
be  very  consolatory  to  us.' 

In  the  summer  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lecky  went  to  Fran- 
zensbad,  whence  he  writes  (July  3,  1875) :  — '  We 
stopped  on  our  way  here  at  Strasburg,  Carlsruhe,  and 
Nuremberg  —  all  old  friends  of  mine.  A  very  pretty 
ceremony,  the  crowning  the  tombs  with  flowers  on 
St.  John's  Day,  was  going  on  at  the  latter  place,  and 
the  whole  country  looked  like  a  flower  show.  One 
epitaph  I  thought  very  touching:  "I  will  arise,  oh 
God,  when  Thou  callest  me,  but  let  me  rest  awhile, 
for  I  am  very  weary."  '  During  his  stay  he  got  a  new- 
German  translation  of  his  'RationaUsm,'  by  Dr.  I.  H. 
Ritter,  who  had  also  translated  Buckle.  It  was  in  a 
cheaper  form  than  Dr.  Jolowicz ',  and  showed  that  the 
number  of  his  German  readers  was  increasing. 

'My  present  performance  (about  which  I  am  apt 
to  get  deplorably  low),'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  from 


122  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Franzensbad  (July  18),  'will,  I  perceive,  be  in  one 
respect  the  complement  of  what  I  wrote  before.  I 
then  dealt  chiefly  with  the  power  of  general  causes  in 
dominating  individualities  and  determining  the  gen- 
eral character  of  successive  ages.  In  this  book  I  am 
dealing  largely  with  the  accidents  of  history,  with  the 
many  causes  in  which  a  very  sUght  change  in  individual 
action  or  in  the  dispositon  of  circumstances  might 
have  altered  the  whole  course  of  history.  I  quite 
think,  with  Grote,  that  the  master-error  of  Buckle  was 
his  absurd  underrating  of  the  accidents  of  history;  and 
Herbert  Spencer  represents  the  same  tendency  in  an 
even  exaggerated  form.  Sir  Henry  Maine  once  said 
to  me  that  he  knew  no  modern  reputation  which  had 
declined  so  much  in  so  short  a  time  as  Buckle's,  and 
that  he  believed  that  the  reputation  of  everyone  who, 
like  Herbert  Spencer,  treated  society  mainly  as  an 
organisation  must  suffer  a  similar  collapse.  There 
is,  I  think,  a  vast  amount  of  exaggeration  current  on 
both  sides  between  Carlyle,  who  resolves  all  history 
into  the  acts  of  individuals  and  deUberately  says  that 
it  is  wrong  ever  to  write  the  history  of  small  or  bad 
men  except  as  far  as  they  illustrate  the  lives  of  great 
men,  and  Buckle,  whose  idea  is  history,  leaving  out  the 
men  and  women.' 

The  winter  of  1875-1876  was  spent  in  hard  work. 
London:  January  18,  1876.  —  'I  am,  as  usual,  very 
busy  over  my  book  for  the  last  time,  and  have  almost 
completed  the  final  revision  of  the  first  volume.  I 
do  not  at  all  know  what  to  think  of  it,  and  am  some- 
times very  desponding  on  the  subject.  We  have 
been,  or  rather  are,  seeing  a  good  many  people.  Dined 
on  New  Year's  Day  with  Huxley,  Tyndall,  and  Her- 
bert Spencer.  Have  the  latter  dining  with  us  to- 
night.' 

At  Easter  Lecky  went  with  his  wife  to  Ireland,  and 
they  spent  some  months  at  Bray,  in  the  midst  of  the 


A   SUMMER   AT   BRAY  123 

beautiful  scenery  of  the  co.  Wicklow  and  within  easy 
reach  of  Dublin,  where  Lecky  went  to  work  every 
day.  There  were  some  old  family  friends  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, such  as  Lord  Monck,  a  former  Governor 
of  Canada,  and  Lady  Monck,  whose  pleasant  society 
in  their  lovely  place  on  the  Dargle  was  a  great  attrac- 
tion; and  Miss  Selina  Crampton,  who  lived  with  her 
sister,  Mrs.  Jephson,  in  the  neighbouring  village  of 
Enniskerry,  where  her  cottage,  covered  with  roses, 
was  a  bright  spot  to  all  her  friends.  She  was  a  unique 
personality.  Possessed  with  the  most  vivid  imagina- 
tion and  power  of  expression,  she  was  inexhaustible 
in  amusing  and  poetic  descriptions  of  Irish  village 
Ufe.  Old  age,  and  even  the  blindness  of  years  — 
from  which  she  ultimately  recovered  —  did  not  seem 
to  touch  her.  Her  buoyant  spirit  rose  triumphant 
above  all  the  discordances  of  life,  and  her  company 
was  as  refreshing  to  those  who  came  near  her  as  the 
streams  and  valleys  and  mountains  that  surrounded 
her.  She  had  much  affection  for  Lecky,  whom  she 
had  known  from  his  boyhood;  and  many  a  drive  on  a 
car  took  him  and  his  wife  to  picturesque  Enniskerry, 
often  past  Tinnyhinch,  where  the  memory  of  Grattan 
lingers.  Her  brother.  Sir  John  Crampton,  formerly 
Minister  at  Madrid,  lived  close  by  at  Bushy  Park, 
which  he  had  filled  with  Spanish  pictures  and  other 
reminiscences,  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  Lecky  to  revisit 
his  old  home  and  the  scenes  of  his  youth.  Sometimes, 
as  of  old,  he  liked  a  walk  on  Kingstown  Pier.  He 
loved  the  sea  in  all  its  varying  aspects,  and  especially 
.  on  those  dreamhke  summer  days  in  Dublin  Bay  when 
sea  and  sky  seem  to  blend  and  the  ships  appear  like 
phantoms  floating  in  the  air  and  reflected  in  the  glassy 
surface. 

They  now  first  met  Father  Healy,  the  great  wit  of 


124  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

Ireland,  who  became  from  that  time  a  very  fast 
friend;  and  Mr.  Prendergast,  author  of  the  'Crom- 
weUian  Settlement,'  an  Irishman  racy  of  the  soil  if 
ever  there  was,  cordially  disliking  England,  but  much 
attached  to  the  connexion,  having  reluctantly  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  Irishmen  were  not  fit  to  gov- 
ern —  '  least  of  all  themselves.'  Among  other  friends 
made  at  the  time  were  Miss  Stokes,  whose  labours  in 
Irish  archseology  have  received  a  permanent  recogni- 
tion, and  Professor  Mahaffy,  the  learned  and  brilliant 
Fellow  of  Trinity  College.  The  Historical  Society, 
with  whom  Lecky  dined,  gave  him  a  most  enthusiastic 
reception. 

'  We  have  been  here  very  enjoyably,'  writes  Lecky 
to  Mr.  Booth  (Bray,  May  15,  1876),  'for  some  ten  days 
past;  find  Bray  very  empty,  with  an  almost  Italian 
sky  and  scarcely  a  cloud.  ...  I  spend  three  hours 
every  day  reading  MSS.  in  the  Castle.  They  are 
admirably  arranged,  much  better  than  those  of  the  same 
period  in  London;  Sir  Bernard  Burke,  the  Ulster 
King  of  Arms,  who  is  at  the  head  of  the  establishment, 
is  the  kindest  of  guides.  I  am  all  alone  there  and 
have  a  comfortable  room  to  myself,  and  find  the  MSS. 
extremely  curious  and  valuable.  I  am  going  through 
all  the  informations  and  presentments  before,  or  of, 
the  grand  juries  in  the  different  counties  of  Ireland 
in  the  first  sixty  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
the  confidential  letters  of  the  Lords  Justices  to  the 
Viceroys,  who  w^ere  usually  in  England;  and  there  is 
also  a  vast  mass  of  curious  and  miscellaneous  corre- 
spondence which  I  must  examine.  It  is  most  strange 
that  all  this  mass  of  interesting  and  often  most  quaint 
and  picturesque  information,  though  open  to  every- 
body and,  for  the  most  part,  nearly  as  legible  as  print 
should  be  almost  absolutely  unknown.  Not  half  a 
dozen  persons  in  a  year,  it  seems,  come  there,  and 
then  usually  only  to  make  out  some  particular  point. 


ACHILL    ISLAND  125 

Sir  Bernard  Burke  says  that  the  whole  secret  history 
of  the  RebelUon  of  '98,  all  the  treachery  and  all  the 
secret  informations  of  the  United  Irishmen,  are  there 
preserved  and  perfectly  unknown  —  Froude,  who 
seems  to  have  gone  very  superficially  through  these 
papers,  not  having  even  gone  over  that  part.  I  am 
finding  a  great  deal  that  is  useful  to  me,  and  I  fear  it 
will  give  my  Irish  chapter  a  very  disproportionate 
magnitude  and  originality  of  research.  •  I  expect  to 
be  at  least  six  weeks  more  at  work  here.' 

It  was  about  this  time  that  he  heard  that  a  new 
edition  of  his  '  Morals,'  for  which  the  demand  had 
increased,  would  be  required  in  the  autumn;  and  as 
he  was  anxious  to  revise  the  book  very  carefully  it 
gave  him  additional  work.  He,  however,  found  time 
to  go  with  his  wife  and  sister-in-law  for  a  tour  through 
County  Wicklow  —  the  Vale  of  Avoca,  Glendalough, 
Luggala,  and  on  to  the  Lakes  of  Killarney  and  Achill 
Island.  It  was  an  ideal  summer  with  almost  uninter- 
rupted sunshine.  At  Achill  Island  the  beauty  of  the 
Irish  coast  scenery  was  seen  in  all  its  grandeur.  From 
the  top  of  Croaghaun  the  eye  looks  down  2,000  feet 
almost  perpendicularly  into  the  dark  blue  Atlantic 
Ocean;  a  transparent  mist  was  hovering  over  the  chffs 
half  way,  where  wild  goats  were  feeding,  and  made 
the  depth  seem  deeper  still,  the  slow,  regular  motion 
of  the  broad  Atlantic  waves  adding  to  the  magnifi- 
cence of  the  scene,  'the  grandest  cliff  view,'  Lecky 
said,  he  had  ever  seen  in  any  part  of  the  world. 

He  writes  to  Mr.  Booth  from  Achill  Island: 

July  24,  1876.  — '  I  have  been  a  long  time  writing 
to  you,  but  till  about  a  week  ago  I  was  working  very 
hard  in  Dublin,  and  since  then  I  have  been  leading  a 
kind  of  purely  animal  life,  out  all  day  and  finding  it 
impossible  to  keep  awake  much  after  ten.     We  have 


126  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

been  having  the  most  wonderful  weather  —  hardly 
four  showers  since  the  beginning  of  May.  The  sea 
has  been  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  blue  as  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  I  find  myself  in  always  recurring  wonder 
at  the  beauty  and  the  variety  of  Irish  scenery.  There 
are  views  near  the  mouth  of  Clew  Bay,  to  my  mind, 
unsurpassed  upon  the  Corniche,  and  there  is  a  moun- 
tain called  Croaghaun  on  this  island  from  which  the 
view  is,  I  believe,  of  its  own  kind  nearly  unequalled 
in  Europe:  a  sheer  cliff  of  considerably  more  than 
2,000  feet  high  runs  down  into  the  broad  Atlantic; 
while  on  the  other  side  Clare  Island  lies  exactly  like 
Capri  from  Sorrento;  and  the  magnificent  range  of 
the  cliffs  of  Menawn  (900  feet  perpendicular) ,  with  the 
distant  views  of  Croagh  Patrick,  make  the  framework 
of  a  view  as  beautiful  as  Spezzia  or  the  Bay  of  Naples. 
It  is  surprising,  too,  how  much  this  country  has  within 
the  last  ten  years  improved.  The  hotels  are  usually 
more  than  fair,  and  as  they  are  rarely  overcrowded 
like  those  of  Scotland,  travelUng  here  is  immeasurably 
more  agreeable  than  in  that  country.  In  the  co. 
Wicklow  and  in  many  central  parts  of  Ireland — in  the 
country,  that  is,  but  not  in  the  towns  —  the  houses  and 
dress  seem  very  nearly  as  good  as  in  England;  and  even 
here,  where  the  hovels  still  go  on,  everyone  speaks  of 
the  improvement  in  well-being.  .  .  .  My  work  for 
my  Irish  chapter  has  been  very  considerable.  The 
informations  and  presentments  of  all  the  grand  juries, 
the  correspondence  of  the  English  authorities  with  the 
Lords  Justices,  the  correspondence  of  the  country 
gentlemen  with  the  Government,  the  newspapers  of 
the  first  half  of  the  last  century,  and  the  magnificent 
collection  of  pamphlets  at  the  Academy  —  most  of 
them  I  have  gone  through.  I  hope  my  Irish  chapter 
may  be  good,  but  I  am  not  altogether  satisfied  with 
it;  and  I  know  that  what  I  write  about  a  certain  author 
you  know  of  will  get  me  into  a  great  deal  of  hot  water, 
which  will  take  a  long  time  to  cool.     Nor  am  I  satis- 


A   SUMMER   AT   BRAY  127 

fied  with  my  English  chapters;  but  I  find  myself  more 
and  more  fastidious  about  my  writing  and  more  and 
more  conscious  of  the  many  subjects  I  ought  more 
fully  to  explore.  I  am  greatly  afraid  I  shall  have  to 
make  an  expedition  to  Paris  to  make  out  for  myself 
the  extent  of  Bolingbroke's  relations  w'ith  the  Pre- 
tender (through  Iberville)  in  the  last  months  of 
Queen  Anne's  life.  .  .  .  People  here  have  been  ex- 
tremely kind  and  cordial  to  me,  Sir  Bernard  Burke 
and  Mr.  Prendergast  (of  the  "Cromwellian  Settle- 
ment") giving  me  every  help,  and  many  other  people, 
including  the  Provost,  more  than  civil.  I  dined  once 
with  the  Fortnightly  Club  —  a  very  flourishing  debat- 
ing society  —  and  also  with  our  old  Historical,  and 
had  in  the  course  of  about  a  week  to  make  three 
speeches,  one  of  them  quite  unprepared,  I  was  glad 
and  somewhat  surprised  to  find  how  easily  it  came  to 
me.  How  difficult  it  is  to  realise  that  one  is  getting  old ! 
I  find  myself  with  old  associations  dropping  back  so 
easily  and  naturally  into  old  modes  of  thought  and  fife ! ' 

On  the  return  to  Bray,  Lecky  resumed  w^ork. 

(To  Mr.  Bowen.)  August  16,  1876.  — '  I  often  think 
of  a  visit  which  Sir  C.  Lyell  told  me  that  Darwin  once 
paid  him  when  they  had  both  just  finished  their 
respective  books.  "Well,  here  we  are.  Sir  Charles, 
once  more  like  gentlemen,  walking  about  with  nothing 
to  do."  I  think  Dizzy's  step  is  very  graceful  and 
skilful.  Lord  G.  H.  told  me  his  memory  was  not  as 
it  was,  and  he  was  evidently  not  quite  up  to  House  of 
Commons  work.  Northcote  will  make  a  very  good 
leader.  I  have  always  a  great  regard  for  him  for  his 
"Thirty  Years  of  Financial  Pohcy,"  the  very  best 
resume  of  recent  financial  history.  You  should  read 
if  you  have  not  yet  done  it,  the  New  Quarterly  with 
Gladstone's  article  on  Macaulay,  and  Hayward's  on 
Croker.  But  Gladstone  certainly  does  not  review 
Macaulay  as  well  as  Macaulay  reviewed  him.     I  have 


128  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

been  working  very  hard  indeed  at  my  State  papers, 
which  are  perfectly  appalling  from  their  number.' 

He  was  back  again  in  London  in  the  early  autumn, 
whence  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth: 

'I  am  just  now  bringing  to  a  close  the  revision  of 
my  "Morals,"  which  has  been  a  very  considerable 
work.  It  will  come  out  in  the  same  stereotype  form 
as  my  "  Rationalism,"  but  with  a  somewhat  smaller 
margin,  so  that  the  two  books  may  be  nearly  equal. 
I  have  done  everything  I  can  to  make  this  book  as 
nearly  perfection  as  in  my  power,  for,  to  my  mind, 
it  is  much  better  than  either  its  predecessor  or  its 
successor,  and  it  and  the  "  Rationalism "  together 
comprise  most  of  what  I  have  thought  on  the  most 
important  matters.' 

London:  Autumn  1876.  — '  I  am  going  through  a 
quantity  of  rather  curious  reading  about  the  Irish 
massacre  of  1641,  which  massacre  seems  to  me  one 
of  the  great  fictions  of  history,  though  a  great  quan- 
tity of  isolated  murders  were  committed.  The  con- 
sensus of  modern  Enghsh  historians,  however,  about 
it  is  so  great  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  shake  the 
belief  in  the  English  mind.' 

The  Bulgarian  massacres  were  now  exciting  great 
indignation  all  over  the  country,  and  Mr.  Gladstone 
made  his  famous  speech  at  Blackheath  on  Septem- 
ber 9. 

(To  Mr.  C.  Bowen.)  Aihenceum:  September  13, 
1876.  — '  I  think  you  Irish  Tories  are  the  fiercest 
partisans  in  the  three  kingdoms.  It  is  very  hard  that 
an  old  statesman  who  is  notoriously  sick  of  office  and 
enamoured  of  theology,  and  who  is  as  notoriously 
distinguished  for  tlie  keenness  of  his  sympathies, 
should  not  be  allowed  to  protest  at  the  most  atrocious 
murders  of  from  12,000  to  15,000  people,  accompanied 
by  every  kind  of  outrage,  wdthout  it  being  assumed 


REVISED   EDITION   OF  THE    ' MORALS*  129 

as  absolutely  certain  that  his  sole  object  is  to  eat  a 
Ministerial  dinner  at  Greenwich.  The  facts  of  the 
case  are  surely  established  by  Mr.  Schuyler  and  Mr, 
Baring  beyond  reasonable  doubt,  and  I  am  sure  that 
sooner  or  later  the  Turkish  question  can  only  be 
settled  by  the  policy  of  contracting  circles  —  giving 
home  rule  to  province  after  province,  and  thus  pro- 
ducing among  them  that  capacity  for  self-govern- 
ment and  susceptibility  of  independence  which  can 
alone  make  them  a  possible  barrier  against  other 
nations.     We    were    extremely    fortunate    the    other 

day  in  hearing  Gladstone's  great  speech.     insisted 

(a  good  deal  against  my  will)  on  going,  but  as  we  had 
and  could  get  no  tickets,  and  were  not  electors  of 
Greenwich,  I  expected  only  to  hang  somewhere  on  the 

outside   of   the   crowd.     ,   however,    audaciously 

went  up  to  the  platform  (greatly  to  my  horror)  and 
asked,  on  no  possible  ground,  to  be  admitted;  and  it 
so  happened  that  the  organiser  of  the  meeting  was 
an  admirer  of  my  "  Morals,"  and  accordingly  brought 
us  in,  and  asked  me  to  second  a  resolution,  which  I 
did  not  do.  It  was  nearly,  if  not  quite,  the  finest 
speech  I  heard  him  deliver,  and  the  effect  on  an  im- 
mense audience  of  from  8,000  to  10,000  extremely 
intelligent  and  appreciative  men  I  shall  not  soon 
forget.  Considering  that  all  those  leaders  who  could 
artificially  organise  an  agitation  are  at  this  time 
scattered,  the  strength  and  volume  of  English  feel- 
ing on  this  subject  is  very  remarkable,  and  the  Times 
is  fully  supporting  it. 

' .  .  .  I  have  been  working  extremely  hard,  and 
have  at  last  sent  to  the  printer  the  new  edition  of  my 
"Morals,"  which  will,  I  think,  be  decidedly  my  best 
book.  About  my  new  book  I  am  much  exercised  in 
my  mind,  not  feeling  sure  whether  I  shall  be  able  to 
bring  it  out  this  book  season  or  not.  I  devoutly 
hoped  to  do  so,  being  much  fagged  with  the  five 
years'  steady  work  I  have  given  to  it.      I  have  seen 

10 


130  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

very  few  people  since  my  return,  except  Lord  Russell, 
who  is  very  flourishing,  l3Ut  does  not  approve  of  Glad- 
stone inviting  Russia  to  enter  Servia;  Layard,  who 
says  any  attempt  to  drive  out  the  Turks  will  produce  a 
religious  war  and  a  general  massacre;  and  Carlyle,  who 
has  been  ill  this  summer,  who  has  aged  greatly,  and 
who  is  strongly  of  opinion  that  Russia  must  go  to  Con- 
stantinople^ as  sure  as  fate,  and  that  she  is  the  only 
Power  who  now  knows  the  secret  of  governing  anar- 
chical and  uncivilised  nations.' 

'I  was  yesterday,'  he  wrote  to  his  wife  (September 
21),  'a  long  onmibus  and  walking  expedition  with 
Carlyle,  who  seemed  very  well,  is  deep  in  Swift,  was 
much  pleased  with  some  more  books  I  have  got  him 
about  Swift,  and  had  been  just  having  a  long  visit 
from  no  less  a  person  than  the  Lord  Mayor.  ...  In 
the  evening  I  dined  quietly  at  the  Athenaeum  with 
Herbert  Spencer.  .  .  .  We  talked  much  about  style 
in  writing,  he  being  strong  about  the  uselessness  of 
knowing  the  derivation  of  words,  about  the  bad  wri- 
ting of  Addison,  about  the  especial  atrocity  of  Macaulay, 
whose  style  "resembles  low  organisations,  being  a 
perpetual  repetition  of  similar  parts.  There  are  sav- 
ages," &c.  He  has  nearly  finished  the  first  volume 
of  his  "Sociology,"  and  seems  very  confident  that 
it  will  be  a  complete  explanation  of  human  life.  He 
finds  it,  however,  longer  than  he  intended,  as  "  he  had 
quite  forgotten"  the  existence  of  one  part,  "domestic 
relations."  .  ,  .     However,  these,  too,  will  be  explained.' 

He  then  adds  that  Mr.  Spencer  'seems  devotedto 
the  theatre ;  complains  of  his  difficulty  in  remembering 
the  people's  (especially  ladies')  fineaments;  had  been  in 

>  Lecky     heard     on     good  would  be   ruinous  to  Russia, 

authority   at   that   time   that  and  that  his  own  idea  always 

the  Czar  strongly   disclaimed  was  that  it  might  some  day 

all    wish    to    have    Constanti-  become  a  free  city   like    one 

nople,     saying     two     capitals  of  the  old  German  ones. 


CONFERENCE   IN   ST.   JAMES'S   HALL  131 

Ireland,  at  Dublin  and  Belfast,  but  did  not  find  the 
hotels  comfortable  enough.' 

Lecky  went  to  Paris,  but  found  that  he  could  not 
see  the  'Archives,'  as  they  were  shut  up  for  the  vaca- 
tion. He  arranged,  however,  to  get  copies  of  what 
he  required  sent  to  him.  'Please  tell  the  Queen,'  he 
wrote  from  Paris  (September  24)  ,^  '  how  very  sorry 
I  am  that  I  cannot  be  with  her  this  autumn,  but  that 
I  am  obliged  to  work  so  very  hard  that  every  day  is 
of  real  importance  to  me.' 

He  found  not  much  going  on  in  Paris,  except  'a 
commemoration  of  the  anniversary  of  the  French 
Convention  in  1792,  which  is  supposed  to  have  regu- 
lated French  politics  in  such  a  very  intelligent  and 
successful  and  enlightened  manner  that  it  is  still 
right  to  commemorate  it  with  a  quantity  of  eloquence 
about  "the  history  of  kings  being  the  martyrology  of 
peoples."  Bulgarian  atrocities  do  not  seem  to  be 
exciting  the  very  faintest  interest  in  France.' 

Lecky  was  one  of  the  conveners  of  the  conference 
which  took  place  in  the  St.  James's  Hall  on  December 
8  to  protest  against  a  warlike  policy,  and  he  was  asked 
to  speak,  but  from  long  disuse  he  had  now  got  some- 
what nervous  about  speaking,  and  refused,  not  without 
regret ; 

'for,'  as  he  wrote  to  Mr.  C.  Bowen  (December  18, 
1876) ,  '  it  is  a  pity  to  have  a  capacity  going  all  to  waste, 
and  the  opportunity  was  rather  unusually  good.  How- 
ever, I  at  least  can  only  do  one  thing  well  at  a  time, 
and  for  the  present  I  am  occupied  very  exclusively 
with  my  books.  I  do  not  know  whether  you  ever  see 
the  Times.     It  has,  in  my  opinion,  been  taking  a  very 


>  To  his  wife,  who  was  staj-ing  with  Queen  Sophia  at  the  House 
in  the  Wood. 


132  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

sensible  line  on  all  this,  and  I  believe  that  if  Lord 
Salisbury  is  looked  upon  as  sent  to  try  and  get  really 
good  government  for  the  Christians  and  not  primarily 
and  mainly  as  the  champion  of  the  Turks  and  the 
antagonist  of  the  Russians,  there  will  still  be  peace. 
The  main  danger  lies  in  the  obstinacy  of  Turkey,  due 
to  the  notion  that  England  will  fight  for  her;  and  I 
think  our  "indignation  meeting,"  representing  as  it 
did  a  very  unusual  assembly  of  classes  and  political 
forces,  was  of  some  good  in  disabusing  them  of  that 
notion.  Gladstone's  speech,  though  very  moderate 
and  statesmanlike,  was  feebly  delivered,  and  as  a 
piece  of  oratory  very  inferior  to  that  of  Blackheath.'* 

The  winter  of  1876-1877  was  mainly  spent  in  cor- 
recting and  revising  the  proof-sheets  of  the  first  two 
volumes  of  the  'History,'  containing  1250  pages  and 
comprising  the  first  sixty  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  An  active  correspondence  with  Mr.  Charles 
Bowen  at  that  time  related  chiefly  to  a  translation 
of  '  Faust '  which  Mr.  Bowen  had  done  in  his  youth, 
and  which,  stimulated  by  the  example  of  his  juniors, 
he  was  now  anxious  to  see  in  print.  Lecky's  help 
and  advice  were  constantly  required,  and  given  with 
that  ungrudging  devotion  which  was  characteristic 
of  him,  though  his  hands  were  full  at  the  time,^ 

'I  am  so  glad,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bowen  (May  26, 
1877) ,  '  that  you  have  brought  this  little  enterprise  to 


1  Mr.   Gladstone    was     con-  ^  The  Faust,   written    some 

scious  of  this.     He  says  in  his  forty    years    previously,    was 

'Diary':  'Spoke  (I  fear)    one  first    privately     printed     and 

and  a   half   hours  with  some  afterwards  published  and  very 

exertion  —  far  from  wholly  to  favourably  reviewed,   in  spite 

my  satisfaction'  (Morley's  Life  of    the  many  translations    of 

of  Gladstone,  vol.  ii.  p.  559).  Faust  there  were  already. 


Wallace's  ' Russia*  133 

pass.  ...  I  agree  very  much  with  you  about  the 
East,  and  no  one  that  I  know  of  except  Carlyle  wants 
Russia  to  be  at  Constantinople.  Mr.  WaHace/  who 
knows  Russia  better  than  anyone  I  meet,  thinks  she 
will  be  contented  with  Batoum,  and  he  is  very  scep- 
tical about  her  passion  for  great  territorial  acquisitions 
which  do  not  pay.  I  think  Russia  is  right  in  this 
war,  and  also  that  the  Turkish  is  the  worst  Govern- 
ment in  Europe,  and  that  it  is  so  undermined  by  in- 
ternal decay  that  it  would  be  perfect  madness  making 
its  maintenance  a  main  object  of  policy;  but,  that 
being  admitted,  I  think  the  more  that  is  done  in  the 
way  of  creating  autonomies  the  better.  ...  I  dined  a 
few  days  ago  with  old  Sir  Fenwick  Williams  of  Kars. 
He  says  Kars  has  been  much  strengthened  since  his 
time,  and  that  it  will  give  much  trouble  if  properly 
provisioned,  but  that  in  that  country  if  you  buy  pro- 
visions or  anything  else  you  are  sure  to  be  cheated.' 

Mr.  Wallace's  book  on  Russia  came  out  that  year 
at  an  opportune  moment  to  enlighten  the  public  about 
the  inner  life  of  a  country  which  was  but  little  known. 
Lecky  knew  the  author,  who  struck  him  as  'an  ex- 
tremely clever  man  as  well  as  a  good  observer.'  They 
frequently  met,  and  always  kept  up  most  cordial 
relations. 

A  publication  of  Sir  Leslie  Stephen's  'English 
Thought  in  the  Eighteenth  Century'  was  of  great 
interest  to  him.  He  thought  it  a  very  remarkable 
book,  and,  as  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bowen,^  '  I  hope  we  two 
may  rather  help  than  injure  each  other,  he  being  con- 
cerned with  the  intellectual  and  speculative  side,  I 
with  the  practical,  active,  and  social.' 


*  Now  Sir  Donald  Mackenzie  Wallace. 
2  March  31,  1877. 


134  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 


(To  Mr.  Booth.)  Athenceum:  May  22,  1877. —  'I 
have  been  a  good  deal  overtasked  by  proof-sheets.  I 
am  now  in  my  second  volume  and  very  near  my  Irish 
chapters,  which  are  the  most  difficult  part,  as  hardly 
any  part  of  Irish  history  has  been  tolerably  written, 
and  one  has  to  gather  one's  materials  very  much  at 
first  hand  and  from  an  immense  mass  of  contradic- 
tions.' 

(To  the  Same.)  Nimegue:  July  12,  1877.  —  '  I  have 
been  busy  revising  my  "  Methodists,"  which  I  am 
happy  to  say  I  have  found  not  a  difficult  task.  I  am 
afraid  I  shall  have  to  run  over  to  Ireland  for  a  few 
days  in  September  to  verify  some  of  Fronde's  refer- 
ences. It  is  a  great  bore  to  me  that  my  new  book 
will  lead  to  a  personal  quarrel,  and  the  length  of  the 
Irish  part  (about  330  pages  in  a  book  of  about  1200) 
is  very  disproportionately  great;  but  I  cannot  help  it, 
and  want,  at  any  literary  sacrifice,  to  put  on  record, 
once  for  all,  what  I  believe  to  be  the  true  version  of 
the  facts  of  this  part  of  Irish  history.' 

Students  of  the  'History'  cannot  fail  to  realise  the 
immense  trouble  Lecky  took  to  disentangle  the  truth 
in  every  detail  of  the  subject  he  was  dealing  with, 
never  slurring  over  any  difficulty,  sparing  no  pains 
in  sifting  the  original  sources  and  bringing  to  bear  on 
all  matters  his  judicial  impartiality. 

In  the  early  summer  of  that  year  Queen  Sophia  of 
the  Netherlands  died.  In  a  letter  of  May  24  (on 
which  Lecky  wrote  'I'ultima')  she  asked  him  and  his 
wife,  as  usual,  to  stay  with  her  at  the  House  in  the 
Wood.  She  wrote  in  low  spirits  and  spoke  of  increasing 
ill-health.  It  was  settled  they  should  go  in  the  middle 
of  June,  but  on  the  3rd  of  that  month  the  Queen  died. 
She  had  bravely  struggled  against  her  ailments  and 
the  troubles  of  life,  but  now  a  few  days'  severe  illness 


DEATH   OF   QUEEN   SOPHIA  135 

carried  her  off.  The  death  of  so  remarkable  a  per- 
sonality could  not  but  leave  a  great  blank  in  many 
spheres  and  in  the  lives  of  those  who  had  enjoyed  her 
friendship.  To  Lecky  she  had  proved  a  very  kind 
and  faithful  friend,  and  he  admired  her  and  was  much 
attached  to  her.  As  early  as  1873  she  wrote,  after 
one  of  his  visits:  'I  am  very  grateful  for  your  letters 
and  kind  expressions,  and  sincerely  hope  the  little  I 

could  do  for  dear and  for  you  may  give  you  some 

wish  to  return  to  a  place, where  you  are  appreciated 
and  loved  as  few  are  I  assure  you.'  She  admired  his 
intellect  and  his  character,  and  the  fact  that  he  by 
no  means  always  agreed  with  her  views  did  not 
diminish  her  affection  for  him.  She  had  been  much 
interested  in  all  his  ways  of  thinking.  She  had  read 
his  '  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland '  as  well  as 
his  other  books,  had  followed  his  controversy  with 
Mr.  Froude  in  Macmillan's  Magazine,  and  she  was 
looking  forward  to  the  publication  of  his  '  History.' 
The  historian  of  Holland,  Motley,  who  had  been  a 
great  friend  of  the  Queen,  died  a  few  days  before  her. 
Lecky  had  a  sincere  friendship  and  regard  for  him  and 
had  seen  much  of  him,  especially  of  late  years,  when 
sorrow  and  illness  had  cast  a  deep  shadow  over  his 
life.  He  went  to  the  funeral,  and  joined  his  wife  at 
The  Hague  soon  after.  He  wrote  to  Mr.  Bowen  from 
The  Hague  (June  22,  1877):  'It  is  impossible  to 
express  how  melancholy  this  is  with  nearly  everyone  I 
know  in  deep  mourning,  only  one  subject  on  every 
lip,  the  streets  hung  with  flags  with  black  streamers, 
and  the  coffin  lying  in  the  great  hall  in  which  we  had 
our  wedding  breakfast.' 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)     Nimhgue:  July  12,  1877.  —  'I  am 
at  last  under  way  for  Switzerland.     We  spent  a  fort- 


136  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

night  at  The  Hague,  which  was  as  gloomy  as  any  place 
I  have  ever  seen.  I  was  really  extremely  fond  of  the 
Queen,  who  was  always  most  good  to  me,  and  the  long 
interval  between  death  and  burial  and  all  the  acces- 
sories made  it  more  than  commonly  gloomy.  Her 
palace  shut  up,  to  remain  uninhabited  probably  for 
many  years,  .  .  a  beautiful  garden  she  loved  so  much 
already  getting  overgrown  with  weeds,  the  swans  she 
daily  fed  wandering  listlessly  and  neglected  about.'  .  .  . 

Four  years  later  he  was  asked  by  the  last  surviving 
son  of  Queen  Sophia  —  then  Prince  of  Orange  —  to 
write  her  life,  but  for  various  reasons  he  could  not 
undertake  the  task. 

Part  of  the  summer  was  spent  at  St.  Moritz,  where 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lecky  and  her  sister,  who  accompanied 
them,  saw  much  of  Madame  Ristori,  who  was  no  less 
fascinating  in  private  life  than  she  had  been  on  the 
stage.  'An  old  flame  of  mine,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bowen, 
'the  great  actress  Ristori,  is  here,  and  it  gives  me  much 
pleasure  to  make  her  acquaintance  and  that  of  an 
extremely  beautiful  daughter  who  is  with  her.' 

Lecky  loved  Alpine  nature,  and  long  mountain 
walks  were  to  him  the  most  exhilarating  of  pleasures. 
He  did  not  follow  the  rules  of  practised  mountaineers, 
and  he  used  to  run  down  long  grassy  slopes  with  great 
rapidity,  maintaining  that  it  tired  him  less  than  a 
slow  descent;  and  when  his  companions  were  labo- 
riously toiling  downwards  he  was  seen  resting  in  an 
enviable  position  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain. 

They  returned  by  Friedrichshafen,  on  the  Lake  of 
Constance,  where  Queen  Sophia's  half-brother,  the 
late  King  of  Wiirtemberg,  had  invited  them  to  stay; 
and  early  in  September  Lecky  went  back  to  England, 
intending  to  go  to  Ireland  to  verify  some  references. 

He   remained   in   London   for   some   days   working 


FIRST   VOLUMES   OF  THE    'HISTORY '  137 

hard  at  very  difficult  proofs  relating  to  Irish  history 
at  the  time  of  the  1641  Rebellion  and  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, requiring  reference  to  numbers  of  obscure  books 
and  pamphlets.  At  the  same  time  he  saw  a  good  many 
friends  and  took  a  long  walk  with  Mr.  Carlyle,  who 
appeared  to  be  extremely  well. 

'We  got  all  the  way  to  Regent's  Park,'  wrote  Lecky.* 
'  He  was  only  for  a  fortnight  away  —  at  Miss  Bromley's 
—  and  seems  to  have  spent  his  time  reading  French 
novels.  ...  C.  says  he  has  seen  no  one  he  knows 
for  a  long  time,  but  seemed  in  good  spirits  and  talked 
very  well.  "The  two  things  I  think  most  of  are  the 
stars  and  the  little  children."  .  .  .  People  here  are,  of 
course,  exuberant  about  their  beloved  Turks.^  As  Mr. 
Villiers  says,  "English  people  always  take  a  sporting 
view  of  foreign  politics."' 

In  Dublin  Lecky  found,  to  his  regret,  that  all  the 
libraries  were  closed,  and  that  the  most  important 
MSS.  of  his  period  had  been  removed  out  of  Sir  Bernard 
Burke's  jurisdiction  from  the  Castle  to  the  Four  Courts. 
'  I  am  making  out,'  he  wrote  from  the  Dublin  Record 
Office,  'one  or  two  difficult  matters  in  my  MSS.  I 
found  a  quotation  in  Froude  which  seemed  quite 
inconsistent  with  one  of  my  views,  and  was  anxious 
to  get  to  the  bottom  of  it,  but  find  that  I  was  quite 
right,  ...  he  quite  suppressing  .  .  .  what  is  inconsistent 
with  his  view.' 

The  first  two  volumes  of  the  'History'  appeared  in 
January  1878,  and  were  at  once  recognised  as  a  stand- 
ard work.  The  Times,  in  reviewing  them  at  length, 
spoke  of  them  as  a  'very  remarkable'  and  'admirable 
book.'     In  the  preface  Lecky  explains  that  his  aim 


>  To  his  wife. 

2  The  Turks  had  been  having  some  successes  in  the  war. 


138  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

was  not  to  write  a  history  year  by  year  or  to  give  a 
detailed  account  of  battles  or  of  the  minor  political 
incidents,  but 

'  to  disengage  from  the  great  mass  of  facts  those  which 
relate  to  the  permanent  forces  of  the  nation  or  which 
indicate  some  of  the  more  enduring  features  of  national 
life.  The  growth  or  decline  of  the  monarchy,  the 
aristocracy,  and  the  democracy;  of  the  Church  and  of 
Dissent;  of  the  agricultural,  the  manufacturing,  and 
the  commercial  interests;  the  increasing  power  of 
Parliament  and  of  the  Press;  the  history  of  political 
ideas,  of  art,  of  manners,  and  of  beHef;  the  changes 
that  have  taken  place  in  the  social  and  economical 
condition  of  the  people;  the  influences  that  have 
modified  national  character;  the  relations  of  the  mother 
country  to  its  dependencies  and  the  causes  that  have 
accelerated  or  retarded  the  advancement  of  the  latter 
form  the  main  objects  of  this  book. 

'In  order  to  do  justice  to  them  within  moderate 
limits  it  is  necessary  to  suppress  much  that  has  a 
purely  biographical,  party,  or  military  interest,  and 
I  have  also  not  hesitated  in  some  cases  to  depart 
from  the  strict  order  of  chronology.  The  history  of 
an  institution  or  a  tendency  can  only  be  written  by 
collecting  into  a  single  focus  facts  that  are  spread  over 
many  years,  and  such  matters  may  be  more  clearly 
treated  according  to  the  order  of  subjects  than  accord- 
ing to  the  order  of  time.' 

The  philosophy  of  history  had  been  from  early  days, 
and  always  remained,  Lecky's  favourite  and  special 
subject.  'The  quarrels  of  statesmen  and  party  con- 
flicts which  are  now  dead  and  gone,  and  which  involved 
no  permanent  principle,'  were  subjects  which  did  not 
interest  him,  although  they  had  necessarily  to  be 
touched  upon.  He  felt  that  a  good  book  should  con- 
tain original  thought. 


THE    IRISH   CHAPTERS  139 

'I  had  thought  a  good  deal  on  religious  questions/ 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bowen  (January  9,  1878),  'and  put 
what  I  thought  into  my  former  books.  I  have  also 
thought  a  good  deal  on  politics,  and  it  is  to  find  a 
repository  for  those  thoughts  that  I  have  written  this 
book.  If  I  had  gone  on  with  my  old  subjects,  though 
there  would  have  been  new  facts,  there  would  not 
have  been  to  any  considerable  extent  new  thoughts  or 
views.  I  did  not,  however,  originally  intend  my 
present  work  to  be  as  full  or  detailed  as  it  has  almost 
insensibly  become.' 

'I  do  not  think,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  (February  1, 
1878),  'I  have  any  reason,  so  far,  to  be  dissatisfied 
with  the  progress  of  my  book.  I  asked  a  few  days 
after  its  publication,  and  about  nine  hundred  copies 
had  been  sold,  which  is  about  the  same  number  as 
were  sold  a  few  days  after  the  appearance  of  my 
"Morals."  A  good  many  people  —  some  of  the 
people  whose  opinions  I  value  —  seem  much  pleased 
with  it;  among  others  Reeve  of  the  Edinburgh,  who 
says  he  means  to  review  it  himself;  Dean  Stanley,  and 
(very  much  to  my  surprise)  Carlyle,  who  has  read  it 
all.  ...  I  suppose  before  long  it  will  get  me  into  the 
hot  water  that  usually  awaits  my  books.  I  am  sorry 
my  Irish  chapters  bore  you,  for  I  took  great  pains 
with  them,  and  am  (to  say  the  truth)  rather  proud  of 
them.  I  venture  to  think  they  are  the  first  serious 
attempt  to  analyse  the  political  and  social  state  of 
Ireland  somewhat  philosophically;  and  if  they  are 
disproportionately  long  and  detailed,  you  must  re- 
member, first,  that  a  great  part  of  them  is  quite  new; 
and,  secondly,  that  I  had  to  prove,  often  from  very 
recondite  sources,  positions  which  are  in  direct  oppo- 
sition to  the  best  English  authorities.  Besides  Clar- 
endon, Hume,  and  many  old  writers,  the  story  of  a 
general  St.  Bartholomew  Massacre  in  1641  is  repeated 
by  Hallam,  by  Goldwin  Smith,  and  by  Green;  while 
my  story  of  the  Jacobite  Parliament  of  1689  is  in 
direct    opposition    to    Macaulay.     The   question    how 


140  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

far  the  penal  laws  were  acted  upon  is  one  still  grimly 
contested,  and  it  is  only  by  collecting  particular  cases 
that  a  reasonable  judgment  can  be  formed.  As  for 
the  Froude  controversy,  it  has  been  as  disagreeable 
to  me  as  anything  could  well  be,  and  I  am  perfectly 
aware  that  it  impairs  the  artistic  character  of  my 
book.  But  Froude's  book  is  the  only  considerable 
book  on  Irish  history  read  in  England.  It  is  the 
source  of  nearly  everything  on  Irish  history  that  has 
of  late  years  been  written  here  and,  I  believe,  in  Amer- 
ica. It  is  written  with  very  great  power,  and  its 
single  object  is  to  blast  the  character  of  the  people, 
representing  them  as  hopelessly,  irredeemably  bad, 
justifying  every  past  act  of  oppression,  and  trying 
to  arouse  to  the  utmost,  sectarian  passions  both  against 
and  among  them.  I  believe  no  one  else  in  Ireland 
could  do  anything  very  considerable  to  supply  an 
antidote,  for  I  happen  to  have  the  ear  of  the  English 
public,  and  I  am  one  of  the  very  few  persons  in  Ireland 
who  have  the  patience  to  go  through  the  original  doc- 
uments and  who  are  not  (I  hope  at  least)  under  the 
influence  of  some  overpowering  craze.  I  have  always 
hoped  to  get  through  my  literary  life  without  a  quarrel, 
but  I  believe  that  in  putting  on  record  my  views  about 
Mr.  Froude's  book  and  the  grounds  on  which  those 
views  are  based  I  am  doing  some  real  service  to  history, 
to  the  cause  of  truth,  and  to  the  reputation  of  Ireland. 
Nothing  I  have  ever  written  has  been  so  painful  to  me 
to  write,  and  no  one  could  wish  more  than  I  do,  as  a 
general  rule,  to  keep  history  clear  of  personal  con- 
troversy.' 

This  letter  fully  explains  the  reasons  why  Lecky 
devoted  a  disproportionate  space  in  his  'History'  to 
Ireland,  for  which  he  has  been  sometimes  criticised. 
He  always  took  a  very  high  view  of  the  task  of  the 
historian.  The  public,  he  said,  had  no  time  or  oppor- 
tunity to  go  to  the  original  sources,  and  the  historian 


RECEPTION    OF  THE    '  HISTORY'  141 

was  therefore  all  the  more  bound  to  sift  these  sources 
and  to  interpret  them  with  the  most  scrupulous  hon- 
esty and  truthfulness;  and  the  greater  his  literary- 
skill,  the  greater  his  responsibility. 

He  was  particularly  gratified  at  hearing  from  vari- 
ous quarters  that  his  Irish  chapters  were  much  ad- 
mired, as  they  formed  the  part  of  his  book  which  he 
considered  the  most  original  and  which  he  prized  and 
cared  for  the  most.  As  for  his  criticisms  on  Mr. 
Froude's  'English  in  Ireland,'  they  led  to  no  quarrel. 
They  were  irrefutable,  and  he  and  Mr.  Froude  were 
both  men  of  the  world  who  knew  how  to  keep  their 
historical  divergences,  however  serious  they  might  be, 
out  of  social  intercourse. 

The  '  History '  was  more  extensively  and  more  fa- 
vourably reviewed  than  any  of  Lecky's  previous  works. 
It  was  warmly  received  in  America,  and  was  at  once 
translated  into  German  by  Dr.  Lowe. 

Lecky's  fairness  in  dealing  with  the  facts  of  Irish 
history  was  gratefully  recognised  by  his  fellow-coun- 
trymen, and  not  least  so  by  the  educated  Irish  Roman 
Catholics.  Sir  John  Pope  Hennessy  reminded  him 
of  their  meeting.  '  Possibly  you  have  forgotten  it,' 
he  wrote  (from  Hong  Kong^),  'but  as  I  "read  your 
sixth  and  seventh  chapters  I  felt  no  small  satisfaction 
in  thinking  that  at  all  events  I  had  made  your  ac- 
quaintance'; and  he  spoke  of  'the  delight  and  grati- 
tude' with  which  men  like  himself  had  read  the  work. 
Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy's  appreciation  was  a  fore- 
gone conclusion.  Ever  since  he  had  read  Lecky's 
early  'Leaders'  in  1861  he  had  felt  'respect  and  good 
will'  for  him.  In  sending  him  his  'Young  Ireland,' 
in  1880,  he  expressed  on  the  first  page  his  'profound 


>  He  was  Governor  of  Hong  Kong  at  the  time. 


142  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE   LECKY 

respect  for  his  [Mr.  Lecky's]  gifts  and  the  use  he  has 
made  of  them  as  an  historian.' 

Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere  sent  his  '  warmest  thanks  as  an 
Irishman  for  the  noble  defence  you  have  made  in  your 
recent  "History."  The  unwearied  assailants  of  Ire- 
land will  find  in  that  work  what  they  can  never  con- 
fute. ...  It  is  just  the  work  I  wanted  to  see  written, 
and  I  know  no  one  who  could  have  written  it  in  a 
manner  so  felicitous  and  useful.' 

To  a  different  category  of  readers  belonged  Sir 
Henry  Taylor,  whose  judgment  was  that  of  a  detached 
literary  critic,  one  of  the  best  of  the  time  —  perhaps 
of  any  time.  In  a  charming  and  characteristic  letter 
he  said  that  for  several  months  he  had  been  reading 
the  'Eighteenth  Century'  and  nothing  else,  and  that 
he  had  only  now  finished  the  first  volume. 

'  You  will  perhaps  wonder  as  much  at  the  limitation 
of  my  reading  as  I  at  the  boundless  extension  of  yours. 
I  am  going  on  in  my  slow,  brooding  way  with  the 
second  volume,  but  as  I  may  die  before  I  come  to  the 
end  of  it  I  feel  a  wish  to  thank  you  now.  The  pleasure 
and  interest  I  have  taken  in  what  I  have  read  is  far 
beyond  what  I  expected  when  I  began,  and  I  think, 
in  parts  of  it,  beyond  what  I  have  ever  taken  in  other 
histories.  My  expectations,  indeed,  were  very  much 
lowered  by  the  announcement  of  your  design,  in  so 
far  as  it  was  to  reject  the  personalities  of  history.  My 
own  predilection  is  for  historical  biography,  taking 
some  eminent  centre  and  gathering  history  round 
about  it.  Yours  is  for  the  reverse.  But  you  have 
made  the  life  of  a  people  for  a  century  as  living  an 
object  of  interest  as  if  it  was  one  great  man.' 

Sir  Henry  asked  about  the  reception  of  the  book, 
being,  as  he  said,  very  much  out  of  the  way  of  knowing 
anything;  and  he  called  Lecky's  attention  to  an  article 


REVIEW   BY   MR,    o'nEILL   DAUNT  143 

he  had  written  about  the  Irish  poet  Edmund  Armstrong 
in  the  Edinburgh  Review  of  July,  which  also  contained 
a  review  of  the  'Eighteenth  Century.'  Lecky  replied 
that  he  was  very  proud  of  having  furnished  Sir  Henry's 
chief  reading  for  so  long, 

'About  the  reception  of  the  book  concerning  which 
you  kindly  ask,  I  do  not  think  I  have  any  reason  to 
complain.  Both  here  and  in  America  it  has  been  very 
favourably  (though  usually  very  feebly)  reviewed, 
and  it  is  already  being  translated  into  German.  It 
had  the  misfortune  of  appearing  at  the  worst  possible 
moment,  when  political  excitement  and  commercial 
depression  were  at  their  height,  and  when  publishers 
say  that  the  sale  of  nearly  all  books  had  sunk  to  an 
almost  unprecedented  extent.  Still,  as  an  edition  of 
2500  copies  is  likely,  I  believe,  to  be  exhausted  by  the 
end  of  this  year  or  early  in  next  year,  the  sale  cannot 
be  said  to  have  been  very  bad,  and  my  publishers  are 
content.  Please  excuse  all  this  egotism,  but  your 
questions  make  it  necessary.  ...  I  am  very  glad  to 
hear  you  have  been  writing  in  the  Edinburgh.  .  .  . 
There  is  something  very  graceful  and  touching  in  the 
oldest  of  contemporary  poets  thus  scattering  flowers 
on  the  tomb  of  the  youngest.  It  was  a  sad  pity  that 
Armstrong  died  so  young,  for,  both  in  prose. and  verse, 
what  he  wrote  seemed  full  of  promise.  We  were  at 
college  together,  but  he  was  two  or  three  years  my 
junior,  and  I  never  knew  him.  I  hope  the  autobiog- 
raphy is  by  this  time  finished.' 

Among  many  appreciative  letters  which  he  received 
in  the  course  of  time  there  was  one  from  Mr.  O'Neill 
Daunt,^  who  had  reviewed  his  earliest  historical  book, 

'  Mr.  W.  J.   O'Neill  Daunt  He    wrote    Personal    Recollec- 

had  been  private  secretary  to  tions   of  O'Connell   and   other 

O'Connell  and  associated  with  books     on     Ireland.     Though 

Butt's  Home  Rule  movement.  differing     from     Mr.     O'Neill 


144  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

the  'Leaders  of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland.'  Lecky's 
acknowledgment,  which  is  so  characteristic  of  hira, 
may  be  appreciated  by  young  authors. 

April  7,  1879.  —  '  Dear  Sir,  —  I  must  thank  you 
most  sincerely  both  for  writing  and  for  sending  me  your 
very  kind  review  of  my  book.  It  is  now,  I  am  afraid, 
little  less  than  eighteen  years  since  you  wrote  in  a 
Cork  newspaper  about  a  little  anonymous  book  of 
mine  (which  scarcely  anybody  then  read)  what  I 
believe  I  may  call  the  very  first  really  appreciative 
review  I  have  ever  had;  and  though  there  have  since 
then  been  many  reviews  of  my  books,  which  have 
made  a  good  deal  of  noise  in  the  world,  I  doubt  whether 
there  has  been  any  which  gave  me  so  much  pleasure. 
I  rejoice  to  find  that  you,  who  even  then  had  so  long 
a  literary  career  behind  you,  are  still  able  to  write  so 
vigorously,  still  willing  to  write  so  kindly  about  my 
performances.' 

Daunt  on  the  Home  Rule  of  the  old  Repealers,  and  he 
question,  Lecky  had  a  great  represented  a  type  of  National- 
respect  for  him.  As  he  wrote  ist  which  is  now  rapidly  passing 
to  Miss  Daunt  in  a  letter  which  away.  It  is  a  type  wliich  was 
prefaced  a  memoir  of  her  not  without  its  defects  and 
father, '  From  his  long  personal  limitations,  but  it  was  pure, 
intercourse  with  O'Connell,  honest,  disinterested,  and,  in 
your  father  perpetuated,  per-  my  opinion,  Irish  life  is  much 
haps  more  faithfully  than  any  the  poorer  for  its  loss.' 
other  Irishman,  the  traditions 


CHAPTER  VI 

1878-1882. 

Portrait  by  Watts  —  Visit  to  Oxford  —  Italian  Lakes  —  Swit- 
zerland —  Visit  to  Professor  Tyndall  —  Senior's  '  Conversa- 
tions '  —  Spencer  Walpole's  *  History '  —  Irish  university 
education  —  The  Hague  —  Ireland  —  Dublin  University 
degree  —  Mr.  Gladstone  on  the  Evangelical  Movement  — 
Reply  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  —  Reads  MSS.  in  Dublin 
Castle  and  Four  Courts  —  Death  of  Mr.  Bowen  —  Henry 
Brooke  —  Letters  to  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt  —  M.  Renan  — 
Visit  to  Tennyson  —  Carlyle  —  Dissolution  —  More  letters 
to  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt  —  Carlyle's  death  —  'Reminiscences' 
—  Carlyle  Memorial  —  Irish  Land  Act,  1881.  —  Mr. 
O'Neill  Daunt's  'Catechism  of  the  History  of  Ireland'  — 
Mr.  Richard  Brooke's  '  Hymns.' 

After  the  publication  of  the  first  two  volumes  of  the 
'History'  Lecky  found  that  the  long  strain  of  work 
had  somewhat  weakened  his  eyes,  and  though  his 
oculist  reassured  him,  saying  they  were  on  the  whole 
a  remarkably  good  'pair  of  optics,'  they  continued  to 
give  him  trouble  every  now  and  then,  and  he  had  to 
regulate  his  work  in  such  a  way  as  to  do  all  he  wanted 
without  overtaxing  them.  There  were,  however, 
times  that  he  was  not  his  own  master.  'Though  I 
work  steadily,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bowen,  'I  do  not  really 
work  very  hard  till  it  comes  to  the  proof-sheet  period. 
One  cannot  then  take  one's  own  time,  and  as  my  last 
two  volumes  were  very  long,  I  was  writing  at  the  end 
of  them  while  I  was  printing  the  beginning.' 
11  145 


146  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

The  struggle  between  Russia  and  Turkey  was  the 
all-engrossing  subject  in  the  winter  of  1877-1878,  and 
was  keenly  watched.  The  situation  was  critical,  for 
the  country  and  the  Cabinet  were  extremely  warlike, 
and  there  was  every  fear  of  England  drifting  into  war, 
Lecky  was  among  those  who  felt  strongly  that  it  would 
have  been  quite  unjustifiable.^ 

In  the  course  of  the  winter  he  gave  sittings  to  Mr. 
Watts,  who  had  asked  to  do  a  portrait  of  him.  Lecky 
was  difficult  to  do,  and,  in  spite  of  all  the  pains  Mr. 
Watts  took,  the  likeness  is  not  as  characteristic  as 
that  of  most  of  the  great  painter's  portraits.  Lecky 
had  a  sincere  admiration  for  Mr.  Watts,  and  much 
enjoyed  the  conversations  about  art  which  they  had 
during  the  sittings.  He  was  struck  by  Mr.  Watts 
observing  that  the  study  of  English  portraits  had  con- 
vinced him  that  in  different  periods  the  English  face 
had  been  marked  by  different  characteristics;  the 
faces  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth  having  been  eminently 
structural,  with  prominent  bone  ridges,  while  from 
the  Restoration  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury the  bones  in  faces  are  almost  invisible,  as  shown  in 
the  portraits  by  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough.  Watts 
found  that  in  the  present  generation  the  faces  of  re- 
markable men  had  in  a  great  degree  returned  to  the 
Elizabethan  type.  Lecky's  portrait  was  in  the  Acad- 
emy Exhibition  in  the  spring  of  1878,  and  is  now  in 
the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  March  18,  1878.  —  'We  have  been 
going  out  a  great  deal  in  the  evenings  —  in  fact,  rather 
too  much  for  my  taste  —  and  between  my  weekly 
visits  to  Carlyle  and  my  sittings  to  Watts  for  my 


'  The  situation  remained  serious  till  the  Berlin  Congress  in 
the  following  summer  settled  matters  for  the  time. 


VISIT   TO   THE   MASTER   OF  BALLIOL  147 

portrait  my  afternoons  have  also  been  much  taken  up. 
I  am  trying  to  get  on  with  my  new  volume,  but  find  it 
very  hard  work,  and  am  not  very  well,  which  always 
makes  me  languid,  idle,  and  incapable.  I  suspect  I 
shall  not  really  get  into  it  till  we  settle  down  here  in 
October.  A  number  of  newspaper  reviews  have  come 
in,  nearly  all  favourable,  but  very  superficial.  Most 
of  my  friends  seem  to  like  my  new  book  a  good  deal, 
but  politics  absorb  all  general  attention,  and  Sir  E. 
May  tells  me  that  Murray  even  said  that  it  is  useless 
publishing  a  book  till  the  Eastern  Question  is  settled. 
However,  in  the  first  six  or  seven  weeks  rather  more 
than  a  thousand  copies  were  sold,  and  Carlylc  tells 
me  that  it  was  only  in  the  third  year  that  his  "  French 
Revolution"  got  to  the  second  edition,  though  the 
first  was  only  a  thousand  copies.' 

He  paid  at  that  time  a  visit  to  the  Master  of  Balliol 
(Dr.  Jowett),  and  was  much  struck  with  the  change 
that  was  coming  over  the  old  university,  as  the  follow- 
ing letter  shows. 

(To  Mr.  Bowen.)  March  27,  1878.  — 'Oxford  was 
very  cold,  and  we  left  it  covered  with  snow;  but  it  is 
always  interesting,  and  I  saw  a  good  many  distinguished 
scholars  there,  some  of  whom  I  did  not  know.  It  is 
curious  to  see  the  rapid  secularisation  of  Oxford: 
chapel  no  longer  compulsory,  fellowships  all  thrown 
open  to  laymen,  and  questions  concerning  the  truth 
of  Christianity,  the  existence  of  God,  and  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  the  almost  usual  subject  of  unre- 
stricted discussion.  A  strange  seething  seems  going 
on,  and  when  one  considers  that  the  present  of  a  uni- 
versity is  in  a  great  measure  the  future  of  a  nation, 
it  is  perplexing  to  think  what  is  coming.  There  seems 
a  breaking  up  here  of  old  beliefs  hardly  paralleled  since 
the  Reformation  —  perhaps  even  since  the  decadence 
of  paganism.  I  am  glad  you  like  my  book.  Some- 
where about  1200  copies  have  so  far  been  sold;  but 


148  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

most  of  the  reviews,  though  generally  favourable, 
have  been  weak  and  very  superficial.  ...  I  greatly 
doubt  whether  I  can  finish  my  "Century"  in  two  vol- 
umes more.  The  last  two  cost  me  more  than  six 
years  of  hard  work  —  and,  alas!  I  was  forty  yesterday. 
How  time  slips  away!  I  cannot  get  fairly  adrift  in 
my  new  volumes,  and  suspect  I  shall  do  little  till  we 
are  settled  here  in  October.  In  the  beginning  of  May 
we  mean  to  go  to  the  North  of  Italy.' 

He  went  with  his  wife  to  the  Italian  Lakes  and 
Venice,  and  found  the  Lake  of  Co  mo  bathed  in  sunshine 
and  in  all  the  exuberance  of  spring  vegetation. 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  Venice:  June  7,  1878. —  'We 
spent  a  very  delightful  fortnight  lately  at  Cadenabbia, 
on  the  Lake  of  Como,  which  I  never  saw  looking  more 
beautiful:  the  villas  and  statues  festooned  with  roses, 
camellias  growing  in  large  trees  and  in  full  bloom,  and 
such  a  multitude  of  nightingales  as  I  never  before  heard. 
It  was  a  very  pleasant,  idle,  languid  kind  of  existence, 
with  a  hot  sun  but  a  cool  air,  and  a  good  many  rather 
pleasant  people.  Among  others  we  had  a  Canadian 
judge  who  knew  Goldwin  Smith  well,  and  who  after- 
wards sent  me  a  large  Canadian  amethyst  as  a  sou- 
venir of  our  meeting.'* 

At  Venice  they  met  his  stepmother  and  sister,  who 
had  gone  to  live  abroad  for  some  years.  After  spend- 
ing the  mornings  in  museums  and  churches,  drinking 
in  the  beauty  of  all  that  art  offers  in  Venice,  they 
enjoyed  nothing  so  much  during  the  hot  summer  days 
as  the  fresh  breezes  on  the  Lido.  They  went  on  to 
Switzerland,  and  from  Aigle,  in  the  Rhone  valley, 
Lecky  made  an  expedition  of  a  few  days  to  the  Belalp, 
which   he  thought   'a  wonderfully  beautiful  and   at 


Judge  Gowan,  afterwards  Senator  Sir  James  Gowan. 


VISIT   TO    KNOWSLEY  149 

the  same  time  pleasant  place,  a  very  good  hotel,  situ- 
ated right  on  the  largest  glacier  in  Switzerland  and  in 
the  very  heart  of  the  snow  mountains.'  He  was  glad 
to  find  his  friends  the  Tyndalls,  who  had  a  charming 
little  house  there,  and  were  very  kind  and  hospitable 
to  him.  On  the  way  home  they  saw  the  Paris  Exhi- 
bition —  the  first  of  those  huge  exhibitions  which  it 
is  impossible  from  their  size  to  see  with  any  satisfac- 
tion. France  struck  him,  on  the  whole,  as  coming 
out  much  the  best,  'for  in  nearly  everything  that 
depends  on  taste  and  delicacy  of  workmanship  she  is 
in  the  first  line,  while  in  many  she  is  unrivalled.' 
That  summer  his  university  wished  to  confer  the  hon- 
orary degree  on  him;  but  as,  owing  to  his  absence, 
the  news  did  not  reach  him  till  too  late,  the  ceremony 
was  put  off  till  the  following  summer. 

He  was  back  in  England  in  October,  and  wrote  to 
Mr.  C.  Bowen,  after  a  visit  to  Ivnowsley: 

October  15,  1878.  —  'We  spent  a  few  days  pleas- 
antly there.  Part  of  the  time  there  was  nobody  with 
us  except  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lowe  and  a  connexion  of  the 
family,  and  I  did  a  good  deal  of  walking  with  Lord 
Derby  alone,  which  I  always  like  much.  I  always 
come  away  impressed  with  his  admirable  good  sense, 
his  very  wide  knowledge,  and  his  complete  freedom 
from  what  were  once  the  superstitions  of  his  party.  .  .  . 
As  you  are  always  so  kind  in  taking  interest  in  my 
books,  you  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  I  am  already  be- 
ginning to  print  a  new  edition  (which  is,  I  believe,  to 
be  stereotyped)  of  my  "  History  of  England."  .  .  . 
What  I  care  most  for  is  the  opportunity  a  new  edition 
gives  for  correcting  all  mistakes  that  I  have  been  able 
to  find  out,  and  in  several  ways  improving  my  book.^ 

>  He  also  suppressed  a  few      true,  he  did  not  want  to   per- 
controversial  lines  about  Mr.      petuate. 
Froude,   which,  though  quite 


150  WILLIAM   EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

A  German  translation  has  also  been  already  begun. 
...  I  am  trying  slowly  and  lazily  to  get  afloat  on  my 
new  volumes,  but  have  been  a  good  deal  troubled  with 
weak  eyes.  The  ocuHst,  however,  says  that  nothing 
is  really  wrong.' 

He  had  the  happy  faculty  of  mastering  with  f^reat 
rapidity  the  contents  of  a  book,  and  this  enabled  him 
to  do  a  large  amount  of  miscellaneous  reading  at  the 
same  time  that  he  was  going  through  MSS.  or  special 
books  for  his  history.  Among  the  books  which  came 
out  at  that  time  were  Senior's  '  Conversations,'  chiefly 
with  the  leading  Frenchmen  from  1848-1858,  revised 
by  themselves.  'It  is  a  very  curious  picture,  Lecky 
wrote,^  of  '  the  political  life  of  that  decade,  and  I  think 
most  people  will  be  struck  with  the  uncertainty  of 
all  political  prediction  which  it  illustrates;  for  I  suppose 
four  out  of  every  five  prophecies  made  by  the  ablest 
men  in  the  most  advantageous  positions  came  wrong.' 
His  own  view  was  that 

'the  events  of  history  seldom  reproduce  themselves  so 
exactly  as  to  justify  forecast.  The  endless  diversity 
of  circumstances  and  conditions  baffle  all  human  fore- 
sight, and  the  light  which  history  throws  in  this  re- 
spect on  the  present,  if  not  misleading,  is  at  best  very 
fitful  and  uncertain.  But  the  same  tj^pes  of  char- 
acter reproduce  themselves  much  more  faithfully  from 
generation  to  generation,  and  it  is  much  more  possible 
to  forecast  the  course  they  will  take  and  the  destiny 
that  awaits  them.'^ 

Sir  Spencer  Walpole's  'History'  was  also  published 
that  year,  and  was  considered  by  Lecky  as  a  book  of 
'sterling  value.'     In  the  course  of  time  the  two  his- 

1  To  Mr.  Bowen. 

^  From  his  Commonplace  Book,  1887. 


IRISH   UNIVERSITY   EDUCATION  151 

torians  were  brought  together  and  became  great 
friends. 

Mr.  Carlyle  was  eighty-three  that  winter.  He  had 
almost  entirely  given  up  walking  and  had  taken  to 
daily  drives,  in  which  he  liked  his  friends  to  accom- 
pany him,  though  he  was  often  wrapped  in  silent 
gloom.  '  He  is  not  ill,'  wrote  Lecky  at  the  time,  '  but 
very  weak  and  very  melancholy,  exceedingly  tired  of 
life,  and,  I  think,  gradually  sinking.  I  drive  with 
him  once  a  week,  as  also  does  my  wife.' 

In  January  1879  there  were  rumours  that  the  ques- 
tion of  Irish  university  education  was  once  more  to 
be  dealt  with. 

'I  asked  Sir  E.  May,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  C.  Bowen 
(January  25),  'if  he  thought  anything  was  doing 
about  Irish  universities,  and  he  fancied  enquiries  on 
the  subject  must  have  been  made  in  Ireland  to  give 
the  rumours  of  intended  measures  the  consistency 
they  have.  I  should  greatly  regret  to  see  a  priestly 
and  denominational  university  which  would  be  sure 
to  lower  the  standard  of  university  education  in  Ire- 
land and  to  prevent  that  mixture  of  the  gentry  of 
the  two  religions  which  is  one  of  the  things  most 
wanted.  Nobody  is  likely  to  ask  for  or  care  for  my 
opinion,  but  I  have  myself  a  theory  on  the  sub- 
ject. I  think  the  only  grievances  Catholics  can  pos- 
sibly have  about  Trinity  College  are  (1)  that  if  the 
parents  of  Catholic  students  do  not  live  in  Dublin, 
the  students,  if  they  are  to  attend  lectures,  must 
either  live  in  an  institution  where  most  of  their  com- 
panions are  Protestants,  or  in  lodgings;  (2)  that  no 
provision  is  made  for  their  religious  teaching  and  wor- 
ship analogous  to  that  which  is  made  for  Protestants; 
and  (3)  that  ethics  and  modern  history  are  subjects 
which  touch  disputed  theology,  and  that  Catholics 
might  reasonably  ask  that  some  distinctively  Catholic 


152  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLPE    LECKY 

books  should  be  introduced  into  those  courses.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  creation  of  a  new  university  is 
very  unnecessary  to  remedy  these  defects.  I  would 
annex  the  Catholic  college  to  T.C.D.,  give  it  an  endow- 
ment as  the  place  where  Catholic  students  of  Trinity 
College  may,  if  they  like  it,  reside  and  may  have  their 
own  chapel;  and  I  would  endow  distinctively  Catholic 
professorships  of  ethics  and  modern  history.  I  should 
do  this  on  condition  that  the  Catholics  should  in  all 
other  respects  be  simply  students  of  Trinity  College, 
attending  its  lectures  and  examinations  and  competing 
for  its  honours.  I  think  this  might  very  fairly  be 
offered.  If  it  were  not  accepted,  I  would  do  nothing. 
It  is  certainly  easier  for  this  Government  than  for  the 
Liberals  to  deal  with  this  question,  but  little  good  is 
apt  to  come  of  negotiations  with  priests,  converts, 
and  representatives  of  agricultural  peasants.' 

The  university  project  which  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough^ wanted  was  given  up,  it  was  said,  on  account 
of  the  Cabinet  being  divided.  Lecky  was  not  sorry 
for  it,  though  he  wished  there  was  a  Catholic  chapel 
with  priests  to  teach  Catholic  students  their  own 
religion  in  Trinity  College. 

'I  suppose,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Bowen  (February  21), 
*  that  most  of  the  session  will  be  fully  occupied  by  the 
interesting  squabbles  between  Churchmen  and  dis- 
senters about  where  they  are  to  be  buried.  There 
are,  I  understand,  no  less  than  five  Burial  Bills  for 
consideration.  Old  Bishop  Phillpotts  used  to  main- 
tain that  even  in  cemeteries  it  was  essential  that  there 
should  be  a  wall  at  least  (I  think)  four  feet  high  be- 
tween the  episcopalian  and  non-episcopalian  corpses 
—  I  suppose  on  the  principle  that  "evil  communica- 
tions corrupt  good  manners"  extends  to  the  ghosts. 
The  English  people  are  very  curious  about  these  mat- 
ters. .  .  . 

1  Then  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland. 


DUBLIN    UNIVERSITY    DEGREE  153 

'I  was  so  sorry  to  hear  that  Sir  G.  Hodgson's  (of 
Bray)  son  is  among  the  killed  in  Zululand.  If  it  were 
not  all  so  horrible  there  would  be  something  almost 
comical  in  this  Zulu  episode  happening  almost  imme- 
diately after  we  had  annexed  the  Transvaal  on  the 
ground  that  their  defeat  by  the  natives  had  shown 
that  the  Dutch  were  not  strong  enough  to  hold  their 
ground.' 

In  the  spring  they  went  to  see  their  friends  at  The 
Hague,  and  on  his  return  he  wrote : 

May  2,  1879.  — '  We  only  came  back  from  Holland 
a  week  ago,  where  we  have  been  spending  a  very  busy 
but  very  pleasant  fortnight,  seeing  an  immense  number 
of  Dutch  friends,  but  finding  it  bitterly  cold.  .  .  . 
Dutch  society  I  always  find  very  agreeable,  even  after 
the  kind  of  society  we  see  in  London.  People  who 
usually  know  three  or  four  languages  quite  perfectly 
and  have  read  largely  in  them  all  have  a  large  assort- 
ment of  ideas,  and  there  is  an  artistic  aesthetic  tinge 
about  Dutch  life  which  is  a  good  deal  wanting  over 
here.' 

In  June  he  went  to  Ireland  and  received  the  Univer- 
sity LL.D.  degree  on  the  2Gth,  at  the  same  time  as 
that  great  benefactor  of  mankind  Dr.  Lister  (now 
Lord  Lister).  He  had  an  enthusiastic  reception  while 
the  Public  Orator  (Dr.  Webb)  extolled  his  merits  in 
an  eloquent  Latin  speech.  He  and  his  wife  stayed 
at  Monkstown,  whence  he  went  daily  in  the  usual  way 
to  read  MSS.  in  Dublin. 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  Monkstown:  July  13,  1879.— 'I 
spend  two  or  three  hours  every  morning  on  the  State 
papers  in  the  Castle,  and  have  also  during  the  last 
ten  days  been  a  good  deal  occupied  with  an  attack 
on  one  of  my  statements  which  Gladstone  has  made 
in  the  British  Quarterly.     Gladstone  has  been  writing 


154  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

to  me  very  civilly  about  it,  and  Knowles  persuaded 
me  to  reply  in  the  Nineteenth  Century.  Happily,  my 
article  has  now  gone  off,  and  I  hope  you  will  see  it 
in  the  next  number/ 

Mr.  Gladstone  wrote  to  him  (June  28,  1S79) :  'In 
reading  your  valuable  History,  which  in  nearly  every 
sentence  commands  my  sympathy  and  concurrence, 
I  found  an  incidental  statement  which,  as  mere  matter 
of  fact,  I  have  undertaken  to  controvert,  but  not,  I 
hope,  in  a  manner  which  will  displease  you.' 

Lecky  maintained  in  his  'History'  that  the  Evan- 
gelical clergy  had  before  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century  exercised  a  dominant  influence  in  the  Church 
of  England,  'and  had  completely  altered  the  whole 
tone  and  tendency  of  the  preaching  of  its  ministers.' 
Mr.  Gladstone,  while  admitting  the  great  influence  of 
the  Evangelical  teaching,  contended  that  this  had  not 
become  prominent  till  after  the  Tractarian  Movement. 
Lecky,  in  his  reply  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  while 
making  some  concession  to  Mr.  Gladstone  as  to  the 
numerical  proportion  of  the  Evangelical  clergy,  which 
he  admitted  he  had  overrated,  maintained  and  argued 
out  his  position,  expressing  his  belief '  that  at  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century  the  Evangelical  movement  had 
not  only  fully  developed  its  principles  and  its  powers, 
but  had  also  become,  both  in  Nonconformity  and  in  the 
Church,  the  chief  centre  of  religious  activity  in  England.' 

'I  am  very  glad,'  Lecky  wrote  to  the  Rev.  Richard 
Brooke  (August  19,  1879),  'that  you  approve  of  my 
description  of  Evangelicalism,  for  no  one  can  be  a 
better  judge  of  it  than  you  are.  Mr.  Gladstone,  in 
a  note  I  had  from  him  when  his  article  appeared, » 


1  On   receiving   my    article,       1879,  'if  it  tempts  your  curi- 
Mr.  Gladstone  wrote,  July  3,       osity,    you   will   find    perhaps 


THE    EVANGELICAL   MOVEMENT 


155 


maintained  that  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith 
"  was  always  treated  as  raising  the  opposition  between 
faith  and  works,  not  between  the  priest  and  the  indi- 
vidual," and  the  Saturday  Review,  which  supports 
him  against  me,  maintains  that  the  habit  of  mind 
which  I  have  described  as  Evangelical  —  the  solus 
cum  solo  —  is  common  to  devout  minds  in  all  creeds; 
but  I  persist  in  thinking  it  is  much  more  congruous 
to  an  unsacerdotal  than  a  sacerdotal  creed.  I  hope 
Mr.  Gladstone  may  now  turn  his  mind  to  Homer  and 
Midlothian,  for  nothing  short  of  his  great  name  could 
have  drawn  me  into  a  ^controversy  and  a  theological 
controversy,  and  I  much  prefer  going  on  in  the  routine 
of  my  own  quiet  work.' 


that  the  collateral  points  of 
difference  between  us  are  fewer 
than  you  suppose.  I  agree  in 
thinking  that  the  EvangeHcal 
doctrine  had  influenced  many 
of  the  best  clergy  before  the 
Tractarian  epoch;  and  I  have 
not  said,  and  do  not  think, 
that  Tractarianism  has  had 
any  great  direct  influence  on 
the  preached  doctrines  of  the 
Evangehcals.  Into  the  very 
wide  question  of  the  sacer- 
dotal system  I  have  not  en- 
tered, nor  have  I  written  any- 
where in  the  article,  knowingly 
at  least,  as  a  partisan  of  any 
opinion,  but  by  way  of  record- 
ing facts  and  offering  sugges- 
tions. So  far,  however,  as  I 
have  seen,  the  Evangelical 
doctrine  of  justification  was 
always  treated  as  raising  the 


opposition  between  faith  and 
works,  not  between  the  priest 
and  the  individual.  Had  it 
touched  the  latter  of  these 
oppositions,  it  would  hardly 
have  retired  into  the  shade 
as  it  now  has  retired.  The 
preaching  of  many  sacerdotal- 
ists,  as  preaching,  now  satisfies 
men  of  the  Evangelical  school, 
as  I  have  known  in  marked 
instances.  But  I  should  have, 
wished,  had  I  seen  you,  to 
quit  this  ground,  and  to  have 
offered  you  orally  my  thanks 
for  the  great  services  you  have, 
in  my  judgment,  performed 
upon  subjects  entering  more 
profoundly  into  the  purpose 
and  scheme  of  your  book,  es- 
pecially in  your  development 
of  the  historical  question  be- 
tween England  and  Ireland.' 


156  WILLIAM   EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  August  5,  1879.  — '  I  have  done 
my  MSS.  at  the  Castle  and  at  the  Four  Courts,  but 
I  shall  not,  I  fear,  have  finished  my  other  work  here. 
The  chief  part  of  it  is  the  Halliday  pamphlets  at  the 
Irish  Academy,  which  is  by  far  the  best  collection  I 
have  ever  met  with.  It  was  made  by  a  gentleman 
who  lived  at  Monkstown  and  died  a  few  years  ago, 
and  though  the  greater  number  of  the  pamphlets 
relate  to  Ireland,  the  collection  includes  everything 
that  is  really  valuable  relating  to  the  English  history 
of  the  time.  I  got  some  of  the  most  valuable  materials 
for  my  last  volumes  from  this  collection,  and  I  find 
that  the  pamphlets  relating  to  the  thirty  years  which 
my  next  two  volumes  are  to  cover  extend  to  about 
280  volumes.  No  doubt  in  the  British  Museum  they 
have  these  and  many  more,  but  there  it  is  necessary 
to  look  out  every  pamphlet  in  the  catalogue,  whereas 
here  they  are  bound  in  volumes  chronologically,  so 
that  I  look  through  fifteen  or  twenty  volumes  a  day. 
I  have  also  been  allowed  to  look  at  the  private  papers 
of  Lord  Charlemont,  the  head  of  the  Volunteers.  On 
the  whole,  I  am  doing  nothing  but  imbibe,  having 
written  of  late  nothing  but  a  little  article  on  Gladstone, 
and  I  fear  this  will  continue  for  some  time.' 

During  that  summer  in  Ireland  Lecky  saw  the  last 
of  Mr.  Charles  Bowen,  and  the  correspondence  with 
him  came  to  an  end.  Early  in  the  following  year 
(January  6,  1880)  Mr.  Bowen  died;  and  by  his  death 
one  of  those  old  family  ties  and  friendships  which 
cannot  be  replaced  was  severed.  In  September  he 
was  again  in  London.  He  went  through  a  long  course 
of  Irish  despatches  at  the  Record  Office,  and  then 
spent  some  weeks  at  Cannes  and  San  Remo,  where 
he  met  his  relations  and  greatly  enjoyed  basking  in 
the  sun  by  the  blue  Mediterranean.  He  meant  after 
that,  as  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  from  San  Remo, 


HENRY   BROOKE  157 

'to  be  stationary  for  some  eight  months,  working 
steadily  five  hours  a  day;  for  this  last  summer,  though 
not  exactly  idle  (as  I  have  looked  through,  I  believe, 
200  or  300  volumes  of  MSS.  and  about  100  volumes 
of  pamphlets),  I  have  written  very  little  and  only 
about  fifty  pages  of  print,  besides  my  little  article, 
since  the  end  of  June.  The  Irish  papers  in  London, 
though  very  interesting,  are  a  severe  task  —  eighty 
large  volumes,  and  nearly  all  important  for  the  thirty 
years  I  am  writing  about.  However,  I  have  done 
all  but  about  fourteen,  which  can  wait  for  two  or 
three  months.' 

Frequently  Lecky  received  letters  from  those  whose 
ancestors  or  connexions  had  played  some  part  in  the 
history  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Thus  his  old  friend 
the  Rev.  Richard  Brooke  was  anxious  to  know  what 
view  Lecky  might  take  about  Henry  Brooke,  the  author 
of  'The  Fool  of  Quality.'^ 

'Although  we  may  differ  a  little,'  wrote  Lecky  to 
Mr.  Brooke  (December  30,  LS79),  'about  the  enormity 
of  Whigs  and  Romanists,  I  am  happy  to  find  that 
there  is  no  real  difference  between  us  about  H.  Brooke. 
You  appear  quite  ready  to  admit  that  he  received 
money  from  the  Catholic  Association  for  writing  in 
their  cause.  I  am  quite  ready  to  admit  that  the 
very  sensible  views  which  he  so  admirably  expressed 
may  have  been  his  genuine  convictions.  Clogy's 
account  of  Bedell  was  printed  from  the  British  Museum 
MSS.  in  1862.  I  know  it  well,  and  should  have  thought 
that  it  was  alone  sufficient  to  convince  any  dispas- 
sionate man  of  the  prodigious  mendacity  of  the  popular 
Protestant  account  of  the  massacre  of  1641.  How- 
ever, on  that  subject  "  libera vi  animam  meam."  I 
have  said  all  I  have  to  say  in  the  second  volume  of 

'  See  Lecky's  History  of  Ireland,  cabinet  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  296, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  183  sqq. 


158  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

my  History,  and  if  people  go  on  repeating  and  believ- 
ing the  old  falsehood  I  cannot  help  it!' 

(To  the  Same.)  March  30,  1880.  — '  I  have  been 
reading  with  great  pleasure  your  new  book  —  espe- 
cially the  essay  on  Owen,  which  seems  to  me  the  best 
thing  you  have  ever  done.  I  am  sorry  you  did  not 
write  more  about  those  Puritan  times,  which  you  know 
so  well,  and  about  those  Puritan  divines  who  now  find 
so  few  readers,  so  very  few  admirers.  Carlyle  tells 
me  that  Owen's  works  were  the  favourite  reading  of 
his  father,  but  I  do  not  think  he  himself  knows  much 
about  them.  You  have  also  managed  to  put  a  wonder- 
ful amount  of  literary  criticism  and  knowledge  into 
the  articles  on  Chaucer  and  Savage;  "Orion"  I  have 
long  known  in  its  earlier  home,  your  volume  of  poems 
which  still  adorns  my  library.  The  little  1  shall  have 
to  say  about  H.  Brooke  will,  I  think,  be  chiefly  eulo- 
gistic, though  I  must  mention  his  connexion  with  the 
Catholic  Association.  His  trial  of  witnesses  struck 
me  very  much,  and  I  regret  that  I  had  not  read  it 
when  1  was  writing  in  my  last  volumes  about  1641 ; 
and  there  is  a  singularly  beautiful  passage  which  I 
find  he  repeated  two  or  three  times  in  his  works  — 
about  the  passivenevss  of  the  R.C.s  during  "a  winter 
of  seventy  years."  Do  you  know  his  picture  of  fashion- 
able society?' 

'  Where  laughter  no  pleasure  dispenses, 
Where  smiles  are  the  envoys  of  art, 
Where  joy  lightly  swims  on  the  senses, 
But  never  can  enter  the  heart.' 

Little  John  and  the  Giants. 

'Unfortunately,  however,  it  is  still  a  long  time  be- 
fore I  can  say  anything  about  H.  B.  or  anyone  else, 
and  one  sometimes  gets  very  weary  of  a  book  which 
requires  for  its  accomplishment  so  long  a  period  of 
most  exclusive  work,  so  rigid  an  abstinence  from  many 
subjects  I  should  like  to  go  into.' 


LETTER   ON    HOME    RULE  159 

To  anyone  who  loved  his  country  as  deeply  and 
sincerely  as  did  Lecky,  the  condition  of  Ireland  was 
now  one  of  grave  concern.  In  his  youthful  days  he 
had  been  able  to  feel  some  sympathy  for  Irish  aspira- 
tions, represented  as  they  were  by  leaders  who  were 
animated  with  a  lofty  patriotism  and  whose  methods 
were  untainted  by  crime  or  lawlessness,  but  disillu- 
sion had  shattered  his  early  dreams.  The  leaders 
whom  the  Irish  people  had  now  selected  were  of  a 
very  different  mould  from  Grattan,  O'Connell,  and 
even  Butt.  They  were,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  described 
them  before  his  secession  to  Home  Rule,  'gentlemen 
who  wish  to  march  through  rapine  to  the  disintegra- 
tion and  dismemberment  of  the  Empire.'  In  some 
letters  written  about  this  time  to  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt, 
Lecky  expresses  his  views  about  the  Home  Rule  agita- 
tion, against  which  he  fought  so  strenuously  with  pen 
and  speech  in  after  years  when  it  became  the  burning 
question  of  practical  politics. 

December  14,  1879.  —  '  Dear  Sir,  —  I  must  thank 
you  for  so  kindly  sending  me  the  Nation  with  your 
letter,  but  you  must  forgive  me  if  I  say  that  I  entirely 
disagree  with  you.  Whatever  else  Parnell  and  his 
satellites  have  done,  they  have,  at  least  in  my  opinion, 
killed  Home  Rule  by  demonstrating  in  the  clearest 
manner  that  the  classes  who  possess  political  power 
in  Ireland  are  radically  and  profoundly  unfit  for 
self-government.  That  a  set  of  political  adventurers 
who  go  about  the  country  openly  advocating  robbery 
and  by  implication  advocating  murder  ("keep  a  firm 
grip  on  your  hand"  without  paying  rent,  in  Ireland, 
means  nothing  less)  should  enjoy  an  unbounded  popu- 
larity and  command  a  multitude  of  Irish  votes;  that 
a  popular  press  should  extol  them  as  the  true  leaders 
and  representatives  of  the  Irish  race;  that  great  meet- 
ings should  be  held  in  which  cries  for  murdering  land- 


160  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

lords  elicit  loud  cheers  and  not  a  word  of  serious  re- 
buke; that  such  a  movement  should  have  attained 
its  present  dimensions  in  Ireland  appears  to  me  a 
most  conclusive  proof  that  the  very  rudiments  of  polit- 
ical morality  have  still  to  be  taught.  There  is  no 
civilised  country  in  Europe  where  such  things  would 
be  possible.  Whatever  else  Government  has  to  do, 
the  protection  of  life  and  property  is  its  first  duty.  Re- 
spect for  contracts,  a  high  sense  of  the  value  of  human 
life,  a  stern  exclusion  from  public  life  of  all  men  who 
in  any  degree  coquet  with  or  palliate  crime,  and  a 
hatred  of  disorder  and  violence  and  lawlessness  are 
the  qualities  that  are  found  in  all  classes  which  are 
capable  of  self-government;  and  the  freedom  of  a 
country  depends  mainly  upon  the  success  of  its  public 
opinion  in  crushing  the  elements  of  sociaHsm  or  an- 
archy within  it.  Judged  by  such  tests,  the  political 
condition  of  Ireland  seems  to  me  at  present  the  most 
deplorable  that  can  be  well  conceived,  and  the  reputa- 
tion and  character  of  the  country  are  rapidly  sinking, 
not  only  in  England,  but  throughout  Europe.  It 
certainly  passes  my  intellect  to  conceive  how  men  can 
imagine  that  they  are  improving  the  political  condi- 
tion of  Ireland  by  instigating  a  fierce  war  of  classes, 
or  its  economical  condition  by  destroying  all  respect 
for  contracts  and  making  property  utterly  insecure, 
or  its  moral  condition  by  persuading  the  people  that 
dishonesty  backed  by  intimidation  is  the  best  resource 
in  bad  times.  As  for  the  Irish  ParHament  of  1782,  it 
was  a  body  something  like  the  present  Irish  Church 
synod,  consisting  mainly  of  Protestant  landlords.  It 
had  its  faults,  but  it  had  also,  I  think,  great  merits, 
and  I  have  much  too  much  respect  for  it  to  doubt  that 
it  would  have  applied  exceedingly  drastic  remedies 
to  such  proceedings  as  those  of  Mr.  Parnell.  There  is 
really  something  too  ridiculous  in  a  party  preaching 
a  furious  crusade  against  Irish  landlords  and  then 
denouncing  England  for  "robbing"  Ireland  of  a  Parlia- 


MR.    O'NEILL   DAUNT 'S   VIEWS  161 

ment  of  landlords  —  creating  by  systematic  obstruc- 
tion a  kind  of  Parliamentary  anarchy  in  England  by 
way  of  showing  how  admirably  fit  they  are  for  mana- 
ging a  Parliament  of  their  own !  You  must  excuse  me, 
sir,  for  expressing  my  dissent  so  emphatically;  but 
until  this  new  communism  is  extirpated  from  Ireland 
or  at  least  branded  with  the  infamy  it  deserves,  I  can 
see  no  real  prospect  of  political  improvement.  I  re- 
joice that  there  are  a  few  Irish  politicians  like  Sir  G. 
Bowyer  who  venture  to  speak  boldly  on  the  subject, 
and  I  am  sorry  that  you  and  I  should  diverge  so  very 
widely  in  our  estimate  of  it.' 

Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt  in  a  detailed  reply  explaining 
his  views  agreed  at  least  in  strongly  condemning  the 
methods  of  the  Land  League.  'Pardon  this  prolix 
letter,'  he  wound  up,  'from  an  old  man  who  heartily 
admires  your  genius  as  well  as  the  mode  in  which  it 
has  often  been  exerted.'  Lecky  wrote  that  he  was 
glad  to  find  that  they  did  not  disagree  quite  as  much 
as  he  feared.  '  I  own  I  do  not  myself  believe  in  demo- 
cratic Home  Rule  in  Ireland,  and  I  think  Home  Rule 
which  is  not  democratic  would  never  be  tolerated.  At 
present,  however,  the  great  danger  to  the  country 
seems  to  me  this  new  disease  of  communism,  which 
when  it  once  passes  into  the  constitution  of  a  nation 
is  apt  to  prove  one  of  the  most  inveterate  and  most 
debilitating.' 

On  February  8,  1880,  he  wrote  on  the  same  subject: 

'I  must  thank  you  for  the  Nation,  with  your  very 
vigorous  and  eloquent  letter.  I  must  own  that, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in  other  days,  Home 
Rule  would  seem  to  me  now  one  of  the  most  certain 
ways  of  driving  great  masses  of  property  out  of  Ire- 
land; for  what  sensible  man  would,  if  he  could  help 
it,  leave  his  land  or  other  property  at  the  mercy  of 
12 


162  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

an  assembly  guided  by  ''the  Leader  of  the  Irish 
People"  and  his  satellites?  However,  I  fear  we  shall 
not  agree  on  that  point.  I  hope  something  may  be 
ultimately  done  to  multiply  peasant  proprietors  in  Ire- 
land, which  would  politically  at  least  be  a  very  great 
advantage;  but  the  difficulties  are  enormously  increased 
by  the  attitude  of  "  patriots "  about  the  payment  of 
debts,  by  the  strong  anti-Irish  feeling  which  the  recent 
proceedings  of  Parnell  and  Co.  have  very  naturally  pro- 
duced in  England  (which  threatens  to  postpone  con- 
siderably the  return  of  the  Liberals  to  power),  and 
by  the  furious  hostility  the  national  Press  shows  to 
emigration,  which  in  some  parts  of  the  country  is  the 
indispensable  condition  of  all  economical  progress. 
I  am  glad  you  have  said  something  about  the  distinc- 
tion between  different  kinds  of  landlords.  I  am  deep 
in  the  history  of  the  1782  period,  and  find  the  papers 
in  the  Record  Office  on  that  time  very  copious,  val- 
uable, and  curious.' 

To  Mr.  Booth  he  wrote: 

Athenceum  Club:  March  16,  1880.  —  'I  have  just 
finished  about  a  month's  hard  work  at  the  Record 
Office  over  Irish  despatches  from  1783  to  1793.  The 
amount  of  material  there  is  quite  appalling,  often  four 
or  five  long  letters  a  week  between  the  Governments 
of  England  and  Ireland.  ...  It  has  thrown  back  my 
writing  very  much,  for  besides  occupying  all  my  morn- 
ings, it  usually  makes  me  so  tired  in  the  evenings  that 
I  have  done  very  little.' 

In  April  1880  M.  Renan  gave  the  Hibbert  Lectures 
on  'Rome  and  Christianity.'  Lecky,  who  had  known 
him  before,  saw  much  of  him  and  his  wife,  but  'unfor- 
tunately,' as  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  '  M.  Renan  does 
not  speak  a  word  of  English,  which  restricts  a  good 
deal  the  number  of  persons  with  whom  one  can  ask 
him.     Wc  had  him  here  the  other  day,  among  other 


LORD   TENNYSON  163 

people,  with  Herbert  Spencer,  each  of  them  extremely 
glad  to  meet  the  other,  but  each  with  the  most  extreme 
difficulty  in  communicating  with  the  other.' 

Mr.  Spencer  soon  turned  to  one  of  the  ladies  of  the 
company  to  rest,  as  he  said,  from  the  exertion.  M. 
Renan  was  very  pleasant  and  good-natured,  and,  like 
all  men  of  genius,  very  unpretentious.  He  talked 
extremely  well  about  history,  especially  his  favourite 
subject  —  the  French  Revolution.  Whenever  he  was 
laid  up  with  the  gout  he  had  parts  of  its  history  read 
to  him,  and  he  was  always  struck  with  admiration 
at  the  splendid  courage  with  which  the  people  of  that 
period  met  death  on  the  scaffold. 

That  same  spring  Lecky  made  an  expedition  with 
Lord  Teimyson  to  Stonehenge,  after  having  stayed 
with  him  some  days  at  Farringford,  in  the  Isle  of 
Wight.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  the  hero-worship 
element  in  Lecky's  nature,  and  Tennyson  was  one  of 
the  people  he  most  admired.  He  had  made  his  ac- 
quaintance at  the  end  of  the  'sixties,  and  from  that 
time  a  visit  to  Tennyson  was  always  one  of  his  chief 
pleasures.     On  this  occasion  he  wrote :  ^ 

Athenceum  Club:  May  21,  1880.  —  'As  I  think  I  told 
you,  Tennyson  pressed  me  much  to  stay  at  Farring- 
ford till  Wednesday,  and  he  then,  at  the  last  moment, 
determined  (with  his  son)  to  go  with  me  to  Salisbury. 
We  had  a  charming  excursion  in  the  loveliest  of 
weather  to  Stonehenge,  Amesbury  (where  King  Arthur 
sent  his  unfaithful  queen),  Wilton,  and  the  church  of 
George  Herbert  the  poet.  Altogether,  such  an  expe- 
dition with  such  a  companion  is  a  thing  that  will 
always  dwell  very  pleasantly  in  my  memory,  and 
makes  a  really  interesting  episode  in  life.     Tennyson 


1  To  his  wife  at  The  Hague. 


164  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

returned  yesterday  in  the  middle  of  the  day.  Had 
the  hotel  been  pleasanter,  I  would  have  stayed  on  till 
next  day,  but  as  it  was  I  thought  it  better  to  return, 
I  always  hate  mortally  returning  to  London,  and  feel 
in  a  few  hours  physically,  mentally,  and  morally 
several  degrees  below  my  country  level.' 

In  a  few  pages  of  reminiscences  which  Lecky  wrote 
for  Lord  Tennyson's  Life  by  his  son,  he  describes  this 
excursion  and  how  they  sat  long  in  the  gardens  of 
Wilton,  which  were  a  perfect  dream  of  beauty.  When 
twelve  years  later  he  was  one  of  the  pall-bearers  at 
Tennyson's  funeral  in  Westminster  Abbey  the  remem- 
brance of  this  episode  rose  vividly  before  him.^  On 
his  return  to  London  he  saw  Mr.  Carlyle  at  once  as 
usual,  and  wrote  to  his  wife  (May  24,  1880) :  '  I  have 
just  been  driving  with  Carlyle,  who  struck  me  as  better 
and  more  cheerful  than  I  have  seen  him  for  a  long  time, 
and  having  just  had  his  hair  cut  gave  him  a  sort  of 
juvenile  appearance.'  This  rejuvenescence,  however, 
was  but  a  flicker,  and  did  not  arrest  the  increasing 
weakness.  The  niece  who  lived  with  him.  Miss  Aitken, 
had  married  her  cousin,  Mr.  Alexander  Carlyle,  and 
the  baby  that  was  born  in  due  course  at  Cheyne  Row 
was  now  a  source  of  great  interest  to  Carlyle,  who, 
never  having  had  any  children  of  his  own,  was  curiously 
ignorant  about  children,  and  looked  upon  this  one  as 
a  wonder  of  nature.  He  used  to  speak  of  it  as  'our 
baby,'  and  said  it  was  'an  odd  kind  of  article,'  and 
that  it  was  strange  Shakespeare  should  once  have 
been  like  that. 

The  great  public  event  of  the  spring  of  that  year 
was  the  dissolution. 

'We  are  here  in  all  the  fuss  of  the  election,'  Lecky 


^  Lord  Tennyson:  a  Memoir,  by  his  son,  vol.  ii.  pp.  200-207. 


THE    ELECTION    OF    1880  165 

wrote  to  his  sister-in-law  at  The  Plague  (March  27, 
1880),  'and  people  hardly  think  or  speak  of  anything 
else.  To  give  you  an  idea  of  how  it  pervades  every- 
thing, I  may  say  that  yesterday  we  were  at  West- 
minster Abbey,  where  Dean  Stanley  preached  a  sermon 
on  the  darkness  of  the  Passion,  which  ho  compared 
to  the  general  election  preceding  the  meeting  of  Par- 
liament, and  he  accordingly  devoted  much  the  greater 
part  of  his  Good  Friday  sermon  to  the  proper  frame 
of  mind  to  be  maintained  at  an  election!' 

The  Liberals  were  returned  with  a  triumphant 
majority,  which  Lecky  thought  would  be  sufficient 
to  make  them  independent  of  the  Home  Rulers,  and 
he  expected  that  the  new  Government  were  likely  to 
deal  more  firmly  with  them  than  the  former  one. 

'This  whole  election  is  a  curious  proof,'  he  wrote,* 
'how  impossible  it  is  to  calculate  or  predict  political 
forces  since  household  suffrage  and  the  ballot,  and  I 
suppose  it  is  the  first  instance  in  which  a  party  has 
been  overwhelmingly  beaten  at  a  time  when  it  was 
enthusiastically  supported  by  nine-tenths  of  the  Lon- 
don Press.  It  shows,  too,  that  the  public-houses  are 
much  weaker  politically  than  was  supposed.  I  sus- 
pect, however,  that,  independently  of  a  real  and  very 
proper  dislike  to  sensation  policy,  mystification,  and 
bad  finance,  a  great  deal  is  due  to  a  mere  desire  for 
change,  which  will  now  probably  bring  about  a  polit- 
ical fluctuation  every  five  or  six  years.' 

Lecky  and  his  wife  spent  part  of  the  summer  in 
Switzerland  and  returned  home  by  Paris  as  usual. 
Two  letters  which  he  wrote  at  this  time  to  Mr.  O'Neill 
Daunt  contain  much  that  is  of  permanent  interest,  as 
they  go  to  the  root  of  the  Irish  land  troubles  and  sug- 
gest what  might  be  effectual  remedies  as  distinct  from 

» To  Mr.  Booth. 


166  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

palliatives  which  are  unsuited  to  the  economic  condi- 
tions of  the  country  and  to  the  nature  of  the  soil. 

Paris,  October  1,  1880. —  'Dear  Mr.  Daunt,  —  ! 
must  thank  you  for  your  two  letters  —  the  private 
one  and  the  letter  in  the  Nation.  Even  when  I  do 
not  agree  with  you,  it  always  gives  me  great  pleasure 
to  read  what  you  write  —  if  it  were  for  no  other  reason 

—  on  account  of  the  admirably  clear  and  forcible  way 
in  which  you  state  your  case.  I  do  not  know  whether 
the  fact  that  I  am  myself  —  though  on  a  small  scale 

—  an  Irish  landlord  biasses  me,  but  I  own  I  take  a 
much  more  landlord  view  than  you  do  of  Irish  affairs. 
The  standard  of  public  duty  in  Ireland  has  always 
been  low,  and  there  are  great  faults  of  negligence  and 
extravagance  and  arrogance  to  be  attributed  to  the 
upper  classes;  but  I  have  never  been  able  to  discover 
satisfactory  evidence  of  the  atrocious  rapacity,  extor- 
tion, and  exterminating  tyranny  which  it  is  the  fashion 
to  ascribe  to  them.  As  you  know  very  well,  during 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  last  century  the  greater  part 
of  the  land  of  Ireland  was  sublet  two,  three,  and  some- 
times even  four  deep  —  a  fact  which,  whatever  else 
it  may  prove,  at  least  shows  with  the  force  of  absolute 
demonstration  that  the  owners  of  the  soil  did  not 
exact  for  themselves  an  excessive  part  of  its  produce. 
The  great  sum  still  given  for  goodwill  in  Ireland  proves 
the  same  thing,  and  I  have  never  seen  any  real  proof 
that  Irish  land  is  now  generally  over-rented.  Molinari, 
whose  very  interesting  letters  in  the  Journal  des 
Debats  I  have  been  carefully  following,  was  especially 
struck  with  the  extreme  lowness  of  Irish  rents  as 
compared  with  those  both  in  France  and  Flanders. 
He  says  that  in  Flanders  the  average  proportion  of  rent 
to  the  value  of  the  soil  is,  in  the  case  of  small  farms, 
about  double  of  what  it  is  in  Ireland.  Unskilful  hus- 
bandry, an  utter  absence  of  industrial  habits,  an  ex- 
cessive tendency  to  multiplication  and  to  division  of 


IRISH    LANDLORDS    AND   TENANTS  167 

tenancies,  appear  to  me  to  have  much  more  than 
landlord  misdeeds  to  say  to  the  poverty  in  Ireland. 
No  doubt  there  are  bad  landlords  there,  but,  as  far  as 
I  can  see,  almost  exclusively  among  those  who  have 
bought  under  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act,  who  treat 
their  property  merely  as  a  speculation,  and  whose  con- 
duct is  in  general  perfectly  uninfluenced  by  cither  relig- 
ious or  political  motives.  As  far  as  I  know,  the  few 
old  families  who  can  still  trace  their  property  to  con- 
fiscations (in  any  other  country  but  Ireland  a  settled 
possession  of  between  200  and  300  years  would  be 
deemed  a  very  sufficient  title)  are  in  general  signally 
moderate.  Evictions  are  generally  bad  things,  but  in 
judging  them  it  must  be  remembered  that  there  are 
still  tens  of  thousands  of  farmers  in  Ireland  whose 
farms  are  so  small  that  they  cannot  possibly  rise  above 
abject  wretchedness,  who  would  continue  wretched  if 
they  paid  no  rent  whatever,  and  who  must  necessarily 
pass  away  (either  as  agricultural  labourers  or  as  emi- 
grants) if  there  is  to  be  any  economical  improvement. 
Nothing  seems  to  me  more  certain  than  that  in  many 
parts  of  the  country  a  considerable  consolidation  of 
tenancies  is  the  first  condition  of  improvement.  Gov- 
ernment, I  think,  might  do  much  to  soften  the 
transition;  but  every  attempt  of  Government  and  of 
agitators  to  stereotype  the  existing  state  of  things 
seems  to  me  directly  opposed  to  the  most"  vital  inter- 
ests of  the  country.  I  can  see  very  little  excuse  for  the 
present  agitation.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  in  the  main 
a  skilful  attempt  to  make  private  greed  and  the  desire 
for  fraudulent  gain  the  mainspring  of  political  action. 
It  is  utterly  ruining  the  Irish  character  and  fast  de- 
priving Ireland  of  every  vestige  of  sympathy  and 
respect  upon  the  Continent.  How,  indeed,  could  it 
be  otherwise  when  Ireland  is  the  one  country  in 
Europe  in  which  murder  is  supported  by  the  full  weight 
of  public  opinion,  and  in  which  men  who  are  the  advo- 
cates of  the  most  glaring  and  transparent  dishonesty 


168  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

are  the  most  popular  and  influential  representatives 
of  the  people?  So  far  from  things  tending  towards 
Home  Rule,  I  think  you  will  soon  find  the  opinion 
growing  up  on  all  sides  that  Ireland  is  unfit  for  the 
amount  of  representative  government  she  possesses, 
and  that  a  Government  rather  on  the  Indian  model 
may  become  necessary.  Please  excuse,  dear  sir,  all 
these  heresies  (as  you  will,  I  fear,  deem  them).' 

Early  in  October  Lecky  was  back  in  London  and 
at  his  work,  intending  to  have  the  third  volume  of  the 
'History,'  which  was  to  contain  the  American  Revo- 
lution, ready  for  printing  in  the  spring, 

'  I  have  been  very  busy  since  my  return  to  England,' 
he  wrote  on  October  15  to  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt,  'or  I 
should  have  written  before  to  thank  you  for  your 
kind  letter  and  to  congratulate  you  on  being  enrolled 
among  the  "domestic  enemies"  of  Ireland.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  O'Connell,  and  still  more  Grattan,  would 
have  been  placed,  if  they  were  living,  in  the  same 
category,  which  seems  likely  soon  to  include  all  re- 
spectable people  in  the  country.  I  see  you  quote 
Dobbs  on  the  insecurity  of  tenure  in  the  last  century; 
but,  if  I  remember  right,  there  is  a  passage  in  his  book 
which  asserts  or  implies  that  the  usual  system  was  a 
sixty  years'  lease.  Unfortunately  landlords  in  those 
days  did  not  insist  upon  prohibiting  sub-letting  and 
subdivisions;  and  as  the  head  tenant  generally  thought 
it  a  fine  thing  to  live  in  idleness,  and  the  cottiers  mul- 
tiplied with  no  regard  to  consequences,  the  country 
soon  got  into  a  state  of  horrible  oppression  and  poverty. 
I  suspect  that  if  it  were  possible  to  convert  existing 
tenants  en  masse  into  proprietors  the  same  story  would 
be  repeated  and  the  oppression  of  the  minute  landlord 
and  the  village  moneylender  would  surpass  all  that  is 
ever  charged  against  existing  landlords.  At  the  same 
time  Government  might,  I  think,  assist  the  better  and 
richer  class  of  tenants  to  buy  their  holdings,  might 


POLITICAL   AGITATION  169 

largely  assist  emigration  in  some  parts  of  Ireland,  and 
might  possibly  give  some  indirect  encouragement  to 
the  system  of  leases.  I  believe  this  to  be  really  the 
best  system,  and  all  my  tenants  (with,  I  think,  one 
exception)  have  them.  Beyond  this  I  do  not  believe 
that  a  Government  can  go  with  real  benefit,  and  I  am 
old-fashioned  enough  to  believe  strongly  in  political 
economy  as  applied  to  land  and  in  the  extreme  mis- 
chief of  most  legislative  interference  with  private 
contracts.  It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  the  pros- 
perity of  the  country  that  the  great  majority  of  the 
tenancies  under  twenty  acres  should  in  some  way  or 
another  disappear.  I  believe  there  are  still  some 
300,000  of  these  in  Ireland.  It  is  also  to  me  perfectly 
certain  that  nature  meant  Ireland  to  be  mainly  a 
pastoral  country,  and  in  the  present  days  of  keen  com- 
petition no  country  can  with  impunity  neglect  to 
follow  the  course  which  nature  points  out.  English 
commercial  and  religious  policy  a  hundred  years  ago 
no  doubt  did  very  much  to  create  an  unhealthy  social 
and  economical  condition,  and  it  cannot  be  justified 
(though  it  can  be  palliated)  by  the  fact  that  at  that 
time  every  country  in  Europe  subordinated  the  interests 
of  its  dependencies  to  its  own,  and  every  Protestant 
and  Catholic  Government  (except,  I  think,  Holland  and 
some  Protestant  States  in  Germany)  persecuted  the 
members  of  the  rival  creeds.  This,  however,  is  his- 
tory, and  we  have  to  deal  with  the  conditions  of  the 
country  as  they  are.  For  fifteen  or  twenty  years  before 
1876,  I  believe,  Ireland  was  steadily  and  rapidly  im- 
proving. The  proportion  of  comfortable  to  infinitesi- 
mal farms  steadily  increased,  and  the  people,  judged 
by  every  possible  test  (houses,  clothes,  wages,  sav- 
ings bank  deposits,  criminal  statistics),  were  steadily 
advancing.  The  redundant  poorer  population  found 
the  best  labour  market  in  the  world  (inhabited  by  men 
of  their  own  language  and  to  a  great  extent  of  their 
own  race  and  religion)  within  ten  days  of  their  shore. 


170  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

The  middle  class  and  the  poorer  members  of  the  upper 
classes  themselves  largely  of  the  noblest  field  of  ambi- 
tion in  the  world  —  the  great  Indian  and  Colonial 
services  thrown  open  to  competition.  Political  agita- 
tion, assisted  by  three  or  four  bad  harvests  and  in  the 
last  few  months  by  the laxity  and  encour- 
agement of  the  Chief  Secretary  .  .  .,  has 

fatally  overclouded  the  prospects  of  the  country,  and 
it  will  be  very  long  before  they  recover.  Dishonesty 
and  Government  interference  are  coming  to  be  popu- 
larly looked  upon  as  the  best  way  of  getting  on  in  the 
world.  Enghsh  investors  are  rapidly  learning  to  look 
upon  Ireland  as  they  look  upon  Spanish  funds.  The 
advocacy  of  rebeUion  and  dishonesty  and  the  apology 
of  murder  are  becoming  the  chief  passports  to  popular 
favour  and  influence,  and  men  of  intelligence,  char- 
acter, and  property  are  likely  more  and  more  to  leave 
a  country  so  little  suited  for  them.  No  doubt  the 
evil  will  some  day  cure  itself  by  its  very  intensity,  but 
the  remedy  will  be  a  sharp  one  and  the  convalescence, 
I  fear,  very  slow.' 

December  4  was  Carlyle's  eighty-fifth  birthday,  and 
there  seemed  little  doubt  that  this  would  be  his  last. 
The  past  years  had  been  exceedingly  trying  to  him, 
for  he  had  kept  his  intellectual  powers  while  he  became 
physically  very  helpless,  his  hand  trembling  too  much 
to  write.  He  spoke  of  his  life  as  contemptible,  and, 
being  completely  detached  from  the  world,  he  longed 
for  death.  He  dwelt  much  on  the  vanity  of  human 
life  and  the  mystery  of  the  future,  and  in  his  own 
solemn  way  he  often  repeated  the  words  of  Shakes- 
peare : 

'We  are  such  stuff 

As  dreams  are  made  of,  and  our  little  life 

Is  rounded  with  a  sleep,' 

and 


DEATH    OF    CARLYLE  171 

*  Fear  no  more  the  heat  o'  the  sun 
Nor  the  furious  winter's  rages; 
Thou  thy  worldly  task  hast  done, 
Home  art  gone  and  ta'en  thy  wages ' 

—  lines  which,  he  said,  were  to  him  'like  the  sound  of 
distant  church  bells.' 

'  Carlyle  has  got  very  much  weaker,'  Lecky  wrote  to 
Mr.  Booth  (January  17,  1881),  'both  in  body  and  mind, 
during  the  last  few  months.  He  has  lately  given  up 
going  out  and  almost  wholly  given  up  reading.  It  is 
very  painful  to  see  the  extreme  dregs  of  life;  but  he 
seems  to  me  getting  so  much  weaker  that  I  do  not 
think  (and,  under  the  circumstances,  do  not  hope) 
that  he  will  last  through  the  winter.  I  hope  you  were 
not  seriously  affected  by  this  anarchy  in  Ireland;  I 
know  you  had  some  property  in  the  West.  It  seems 
to  me  one  of  the  most  scandalous  things  I  ever  remem- 
ber in  politics,  allowing  Ireland  to  get  to  its  present 
state,  when  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Irish  magistracy 
and  such  strenuous  Liberals  as  Lords  Monk  and  Emly 
and  Sir  W.  Gregory  urgently  pressed  on  the  Govern- 
ment in  the  beginning  of  November  the  necessity  of 
suspending  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  which  would  then 
probably  have  quieted  Ireland.  Their  defenders  say 
that  even  the  existing  anarchy  is  a  lesser  evil  than  it 
would  have  been  to  have  Bright  seceding  and  at 
the  head  of  the  English  Radicals  in  alhance  with 
the  Land  League.  I  hope  things  have  passed  their 
worst  now,  as  the  suspension  must  soon  come,  and 
Parliament  is  beginning  to  get  very  properly  irri- 
tated at  Parnellite  proceedings.  The  Land  Bill,  I 
beheve,  will  be  very  moderate.  Curiously  enough, 
Gladstone  on  this  question  is  much  more  conserva- 
tive than  most  of  his  party  and  Cabinet.  I  hear  that 
he  is  for  one  "F"  only — fair  rents  —  i.e.  some  court 
of  arbitration.' 


172  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

(To  the  Same.)  Athenceum  Club:  January  21,  1881. 
— '  I  think  Carlyle  is  sinking,  and  should  not  be  sur- 
prised any  day  to  hear  of  his  death.  Since  Sunday 
he  has  been  in  bed,  and  is  in  a  state  of  extreme  weak- 
ness and  prostration.  I  saw  him  yesterday  for  a  few 
minutes,  and  he  was  just  able  to  say  three  or  four 
sentences  —  more,  his  niece  said,  than  he  had  said 
ever  since  Sunday.  It  is  strange  and  sad  to  see  one 
of  the  greatest  masters  of  language  scarcely  able  to 
construct  the  shortest  sentence,  one  of  the  greatest 
intellects  of  his  time  with  his  brain  as  feeble  as  a  child's. 
We  are,  of  course,  here  much  paralysed  by  snow.  A 
few  sledges  are  going  about.  Personally  I  hke  this 
kind  of  weather,  but  hardly  venture  to  say  so  —  so 
many  hate  it.  I  agree  very  much  with  your  political 
predictions.  I  think  that  the  time  must  come  when  it 
will  be  found  impossible  to  centre  practically  all  poht- 
ical  power  in  this  country  in  a  House  of  Commons 
such  as  this  soon  will  be.  We  are  going  in  a  few  days 
to  see  Tennyson's  play.  He  took  the  subject.  Gamma, 
out  of  my  "  Morals.  "  ' 

At  last,  on  February  5,  Carlyle's  end  came  gently 
and  painlessly  like  a  fire  dying  out.^ 

1  Mrs.     L.     to    her     sister,  water    and   ether  was    all   he 

February  5:  'Mr.  Carlyle  died  had  taken  for  days.     He  was 

this    morning    at    8.30,     and  hardly  cold  yet,  and  there  was 

though  all  life  was  nearly,  or  a  little  colour  left  in  his  cheeks, 

seemed  nearly,  gone  out  of  him  The    end   long   expected    was 

the   last    few    days,    still    one  perfectly    quiet:    a    sigh    and 

feels   very    differently  to-day  nothing  more.     I  am  glad  for 

that  he  is  no  longer  there.     We  him   that   it  is  all  over,   but 

went  at  two,  and  only  saw  by  it    leaves  a  blank  of    course, 

the    closed    shutters    that    all  Reading  his  books  brings  one 

was  over.     We  went  up  to  the  again  near  him,  for  there  all 

room  where  he  lay  and  looked  his  thoughts  are,  and  he  has 

at    him    for    a    moment.     He  really  left   nothing   unsaid   of 

is   terribly  thin,    brandy-and-  what  he  wanted  to  say.' 


DEATH   OF    CARLYLE  173 

To  Sir  Henry  Taylor  Lccky  wrote,  on  February  6, 
1881: 

'  Dear  Sir  Henry,  —  Mrs.  Carlyle  has  asked  me  to 
perform  in  her  name  the  melancholy  little  formality 
of  writing  to  you  about  Carlyle's  death.  There  is 
really  scarcely  anything  to  be  said  beyond  what  you 
already  know,  except  that  for  the  last  few  days  he 
was  in  an  unconscious  or  semi-conscious  state,  and 
that  the  end  was  so  quiet  that  it  was  only  by  hearing 
the  breathing  stop  that  it  could  be  detected.  It  lasted 
much  longer  than  was  expected,  for  this  day  fortnight 
it  was  scarcely  thought  that  he  could  have  outlived 
the  day.  He  has  been  for  some  time  past  in  a  deplor- 
able state  of  weakness,  which  was  peculiarly  unsuited 
to  and  pecuharly  painful  in  a  man  of  his  strong,  vehe- 
ment, and  impatient  character,  and  no  one  can  feel  the 
end  to  be  anything  but  a  relief.  He  gave  positive 
directions  that  he  was  to  be  buried  in  Scotland.' 

In  the  face  of  those  directions  Dean  Stanley  could 
not,  to  his  disappointment,  claim  the  remains  for  West- 
minster Abbey.  Mr.  Froude,  Professor  Tyndall,  and 
Lecky,  having  been  invited  to  the  funeral,  travelled 
by  night  to  Ecclefechan;  and  a  few  other  friends  met 
that  same  evening  at  Cheyne  Row  and  followed  the 
remains  to  the  station,  where  they  saw  them  placed 
on  the  funeral  car  and  watched  them  till  they  dis- 
appeared in  the  darkness  of  the  night.  The  funeral 
was  kept  absolutely  private,  the  day  and  hour  having 
only  been  mentioned  to  the  few  who  were  invited. 
According  to  Scottish  custom,  not  a  word  was  spoken, 
and  when  it  was  over  all  went  their  own  way. 

Carlyle's  greatness  was  fully  recognised  in  the 
notices  that  appeared  after  his  death,  and  this  was  a 
satisfaction  to  his  friends. 

'You  have  been  out  of  the  way,  probably,  of  most 


174  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

newspapers,'  wrote  Lecky  to  Mr.  Booth  on  July  12, 
1881,  'otherwise  I  do  not  think  you  would  say  that 
Carlyle's  death  made  little  impression.  It  seems  to 
me  that  more  has  been  said  and  written  about  it  than 
about  any  literary  man  I  remember,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  Dickens,  and  several  of  the  notices  were 
extremely  able.  The  Dean,  of  course,  was  anxious 
to  get  him  into  Westminster  Abbey;  but  Carlyle  had 
left  the  most  explicit  and  formal  directions  that  he 
was  to  be  buried  in  Scotland  and  quite  quietly,  so  the 
scheme  was  at  once  negatived.  .  .  .  Three  of  us  — 
Froude,  Tyndall,  and  myself  —  went  down  to  the 
funeral,  which  interested  me  a  good  deal.  I  will 
tell  you  more  about  it  when  we  meet.' 

The  admirers  of  Carlyle  in  London  got  up  a  move- 
ment to  erect  a  memorial  to  him,^  and  at  first  they  met 
with  a  great  deal  of  response,  but  on  the  publication 
of  the  '  Reminiscences'  it  came  to  a  standstill. 

Lecky  wrote  to  Sir  Henry  Taylor  (April  30,  1881) : 

'  Dear  Sir  Henry,  —  Some  of  Carlyle's  friends  are 
trying  to  get  up  a  memorial  to  him  in  the  shape  of  a 
statue  by  Boehm  on  the  Embankment  and  a  bust  in 
Westminster  Abbey.  Lady  Stanley  of  Alderley  asked 
me  to  write  to  you  and  ask  if  you  would  kindly  help 
us  and  would  allow  us  to  put  down  your  name  on  the 
committee.  The  latter  does  not  involve  any  active 
duty,  but,  of  course,  a  name  such  as  yours  would  help 
much  to  give  weight  to  the  movement.  Tennyson, 
Browning,  Tyndall,  Lord  Derby,  Jowett,  Max  Miiller, 
are  among  the  subscribers.  ...  I  fear  those  horrid 


1  A  few  intimate  friends  of  one  could  but  respect,  though 
Carlyle  wished  at  the  same  one  regretted  it,  she  absolutely- 
time  to  raise  a  private  sub-  refused  the  offer,  and  so  after 
scription  to  buy  his  house  and  a  time  it  passed  into  strangers' 
present  it  to  his  niece;  but  hands  before  it  was  finally 
with   an   independence   which  bought  as  a  memorial. 


CARLYLE   MEMORIAL  175 

"Reminiscences"  have  thrown  a  considerable  damp 
over  the  movement,  but  I  hope  that,  once  it  is  brought 
really  before  the  pubhc,  there  will  not  be  much  diffi- 
culty in  getting  the  money.  I  was  so  very  glad  to 
hear  that  you  are  writing,  or  going  to  write,  about 
Carlyle,  for  no  one  could  do  it  better.  The  reaction 
about  him  has  been  so  violent  that  it  must,  I  think, 
be  followed  by  a  certain  reaction  against  the  reaction.' 

(To  the  Same.)  May  2,  1881.  — 'I  do  not  myself 
care  about  the  honour  of  a  statue,  but  about  the  ig- 
nominy if  such  a  project  once  started  should  fail.  .  .  . 
The  whole  matter  is,  I  think,  most  painful.  Unfor- 
tunately, for  my  own  part,  it  is  utterly  impossible 
that  I  could  take  part  in  the  controversy,  for  (besides 
the  fact  that  writing  articles  is  quite  outside  my  way 
and  experience  in  literature)  I  am  printing  a  volume 
of  nearly  700  pages  of  my  ''History,"  and  proofs 
come  in  so  much  faster  than  I  can  correct  and  verify 
them  that  I  am  an  absolute  slave,  I  am  delighted, 
however,  that  you,  who  can  do  it  so  well,  are  going 
to  write  on  the  subject,  and  shall  read  the  proof-sheets 
with  very  great  interest.  Gladstone,  whom  I  have 
seen  two  or  three  times  lately,  and  who  is  in  general 
very  anti-Carlylese,  was  dwelling  with  great  and,  I 
think,  just  admiration  on  the  extreme  beauty  of  an 
image  about  Carlyle's  dying  mother  in  vol.ii.  234.' 

'  I  don't  think  the  impression  of  the  book  will  be 
quite  as  bad  when  it  is  read  by  those  who  are  not  in 
London  life  or  fresh  from  reading  reviews.  The  very 
objectionable  parts  are  all,  I  think,  in  seven  or  ten 
pages,  and  these  naturally  at  the  present  moment  are 
brought  into  a  very  excessive  relief.' 

(To  the  Same.)     May  6,  1881.— 'I  think  you  are 


>*Ah  me!  Ah  me!  It  was  sickle  of  the  moon  which  had 
my  mother  and  not  my  once  been  full,  now  sinking  in 
mother;  the  last  pale  rim  or      the  dark  seas.' 


176  WILLIAM   EDWAED  HAKTPOLE   LECKY 

very  fortunate  in  being  out  of  the  way  of  hearing  and 
reading  all  that  has  been  said  on  the  Carlyle  matter, 
for  it  has  certainly  been  neither  pleasant  nor  edifying. 
Carlyle  himself  was  very  wrong  in  writing  some  things 
he  did,  and  in  not  devoting  a  portion  of  the  nine  or 
ten  years  in  which  he  had  nothing  better  to  do  and  had 
the  full  possession  of  his  faculties  to  weeding  his  papers; 
and  as  for  the  proceedings  since  his  death,  I  never 
remember  a  case  in  which  so  much  pain  and  annoyance 
have  been  inflicted  which  might  have  been  most  easily 
avoided  by  a  little  more  common  sense,  high-mind- 
edness,  and  respect  for  the  feelings  of  others.  .  .  . 

*  The  Carlyle  Memorial  Committee  were  dehghted  to 
enroll  your  name  among  the  members.' 

Lecky,  after  reading  the  proof-sheets  of  Sir  Henry 
Taylor's  article,  wrote: 

May  23,  1881.  — 'Dear  Sir  Henry,  —  I  return  the 
proofs  with  many  thanks.  I  have  read  them  with  the 
greatest  interest,  and  think  the  article  quite  up  to 
your  usual  high  level  and  admirably  calculated  for 
the  appeasing  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended.  I 
think  you  are  perfectly  right  about  the  soliloquy  char- 
acter of  the  book,  and  I  was  struck  by  the  fact  that 
exactly  the  same  remark  was  made  to  me  by  that 
very  excellent  critic  Leslie  Stephen.  .  .  . 

'I  was  dining  last  night  at  Pembroke  Lodge  with 
Gladstone,  who  was  wonderfully  bright  and  charming, 
though  looking,  I  think,  somewhat  aged,  and  leaning  a 
good  deal  on  his  stick.  He  is,  I  believe,  very  anxious 
(and  with  only  too  good  reason)  about  Ireland  and  the 
Land  Bill;  but  he  manages  notwithstanding  to  be  full 
of  excitement  about  the  new  translation  of  the  New 
Testament  and  about  the  criticisms  of  Robertson 
Smith  upon  the  Pentateuch.' 

The  difficulty  in  which  the  Memorial  Commitee 
found  itself  induced  Lecky  to  write  a  letter  to  the 


LETTER   IN    'SPECTATOR'  177 

Spectator,  signed  with  his  initials  (June  18,  1881), 
pointing  out  how  unreasonable  it  was  to  judge  a  great 
writer,  who  had  published  some  thirty-five  most 
excellent  volumes,  mainly,  if  not  exclusively,  by  a 
book  which  he  did  not  publish,  and  urging  the  public 
to  take  a  saner  view  of  the  matter  and  to  remember 
that  the  'Reminiscences'  were  not  Carlyle's  main 
contribution  to  literature  or  his  chief  title  to  fame. 

He  showed  how  carefully  Carlyle  always  revised 
his  own  published  works,  and  that  'although  he  was 
accustomed  to  express  very  strong  opinions  in  still 
stronger  language,  although  he  wrote  largely  about 
contemporary  movements  and  contemporary  people, 
the  works  which  he  published  himself  are  most  remark- 
ably free  from  anything  that  could  hurt  the  feelings  of 
individuals.' 

'Whatever  diversity  of  opinion,'  concluded  Lecky, 
'there  may  be  about  some  parts  of  his  teaching,  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  he  has  been  one  of 
the  three  or  four  greatest  men  of  letters  of  the  reign 
of  Victoria;  that  during  a  singularly  honourable  and 
laborious  literary  life,  extending  over  half  a  century,' 
he  has  been  one  of  the  great  "  seminal  intellects  "  and 
perhaps  the  strongest  moral  force  in  English  literature; 
and  that,  if  memorials  are  ever  to  be  raised  to  great 
writers,  he  has  a  title  to  that  honour  which  very  few 
of  his  contemporaries  can  equal,  and  which  none  of 
them  can  surpass.  It  would  be  a  strange  proof  of  the 
levity  or  ingratitude  of  his  readers  if  there  should 
be  any  diflBculty  in  raising  the  sum  which  is  required.' 

The  letter  made  a  very  good  impression,  but  it  was 
impossible  to  revive  the  first  burst  of  enthusiasm. 
After  a  time,  however,  a  very  fine  and  characteristic 
statue  arose  on  the  Embankment;  and  if  the  public 
failed  to  take  all  the  part  that  was  expected,  the  gen- 
13 


178  WILLIAM   EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

erosity  of  the  artist  made  up  for  it.  His  statue  of 
Carlyle,  wrote  Lecky  after  Boehm's  death  in  1890, 
was  pre-eminently  a  labour  of  love,  for  a  warm,  deep, 
and  cordial  friendship  subsisted  between  that  great 
writer  and  himself.^ 

Meanwhile  Lecky  was  working  steadily  at  his 
'  History/ 

(To  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt.)  July  17,  1881.  —'I  must 
thank  you  for  your  kind  and  interesting  letter  which 
has,  I  fear,  been  some  time  unanswered.  I  have  not 
yet  arrived  in  my  work  at  the  time  you  are  so  much 
interested  in,  having  but  just  completed  a  long  chapter 
on  Ireland  from  1760-1782,  a  story  which  I  wish  I 
could  make  as  interesting  to  my  readers  as  it  has  been 
to  me.  I  assure  you,  however,  that  I  do  not  attribute 
'98  to  the  events  of  '82,  and  I  think  that  a  great  respect 
for  the  Parhament  of  '82  is  quite  compatible  with  a 
great  disbeUef  in  the  possibility  of  reviving  it  under 
the  totally  different  and  very  democratic  conditions  of 
the  present.' 

In  the  early  spring  of  1881  Lecky  began  his  proof- 
sheets,  which  were  very  hard  work.  He  always  went 
over  them  most  carefully  three  times,  verifying  every 
fact  and  every  reference.  '  If  I  can  only  complete 
this  History,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  'I  hope  never 
again  to  write  a  book  of  historical  research,  though  I 
have  a  good  deal  to  say  on  other  subjects.' 

The  Parliamentary  session  of  1881  was  memorable 
for  the  passing  of  the  Irish  Land  Act,  which  by  intro- 
ducing the  so-called  'three  F's'  —  fixity  of  tenure, 
free  sale,  and  fair  rents  —  completely  revolutionised 
the  relations  between  landlords  and  tenants. 

'  I  was  at  the  House  of  Commons  a  few  nights  ago,' 


Spectator,  December  20,  1890. 


IRISH   LAND    BILL,    1881  179 

Lecky  wrote  to  his  stepmother  on  April  15,  1881,  'to 
hear  Gladstone's  speech  on  the  Land  Bill  (which  was 
exceedingly  fine),  and  afterwards  dined  with  him  at 
Sir  E.  May's.  It  was  quite  extraordinary  to  see  how 
fresh  and  bright  he  was  in  the  evening  after  so  great 
an  effort.  As  far  as  I  can  judge,  the  Land  Bill  will 
greatly  increase  the  probability  of  regular  payment  of 
rents  in  Ireland  (and  this  Gladstone  himself  strongly 
holds),  and  I  think  it  will  also  raise  the  price  of  Irish 
land.  The  faciUties  given  to  tenants  to  purchase  their 
tenancies  and  also  to  become  tenants  in  fee  farm  (that 
is  to  say,  to  purchase  the  right  of  holding  them  in 
perpetuity  subject  to  a  small  fixed  rent)  wih,  I  think, 
prove  very  useful.  Tenancies  under  existing  leases  of 
thirty-one  years  are  not  interfered  with,  and  that  is 
the  case  with  nearly  all  mine.  I  am  very  glad  also  for 
the  clauses  helping  emigration.  At  the  same  time  the 
Bill  is  so  complex  and  far-reaching  that  I  cannot  pre- 
tend to  forecast  all  its  effects,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
that  it  will  undergo  considerable  modifications  before 
it  passes.  Gladstone  has  asked  me  to  breakfast  with 
him  (on  the  28th)  when  he  returns,  and  I  dare  say  I 
shall  hear  something  more  about  it.  We  have  been,  as 
usual,  doing  a  good  many  interesting  things  and  seeing 
a  good  many  interesting  people.  Among  other  events 
we  went  to  Tennyson's  new  play  ("The  Cup,"  which 
has  been  a  great  success)  with  Tennyson  himself.  .  .  .' 

He  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  (April  24,  1881)  that  Glad- 
stone's speech  on  the  Land  Bill '  was  very  fine,  and  the 
peroration  exceedingly  effective,  though  on  reflexion 
there  is  something  a  little  ludicrous  in  the  great  states- 
man assuring  Parliament  with  such  extreme  solemnity 
and  impressiveness  of  manner  that  justice  is  an  ad- 
mirable thing.' 

(To  the  Same.)  August  4,  1881. — 'We  are  going 
to  stay  for  a  month  or  six  weeks  in  a  country  house 


180  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

belonging  to  my  wife's  brother  in  one  of  the  most 
remote  parts  of  Holland.  It  is  planted  in  the  midst 
of  a  pond,  so  that  one  might  fish  out  of  all  the  windows, 
and  is  about  one  and  a  half  hours  from  the  nearest 
(a  tiny  little  village)  station.  I  Uke,  however,  its  com- 
plete quiet  very  much,  and  have  got,  unfortunately, 
about  fifty  pages  of  print  which  I  must  try  and  write 
before  coming  back.  I  am  just  finishing  the  proofs  of 
volume  iii.  and  mean  to  begin  volume  iv.  on  my  return, 
and  hope  to  bring  both  out  in  March,  and  then  to  take 
a  real  hoHday.  I  was  very  sorry  for  the  Dean,^  whom 
I  knew  very  well.  It  was  in  his  house  that  I  first  met 
my  wife.  But  he  was  himself  of  late  very  tired  of 
life,  and  the  end  was  very  painless,  quiet,  and  calm. 
I  hear  that  when  they  told  him  he  was  dying  his  pulse 
at  once  got  calmer,  and  he  dropped  into  such  a  quiet 
sleep  that  they  thouglit  for  a  time  he  would  recover. 
London  now  contains  scarcely  anyone  except  politi- 
cians and  doctors,  and  if  Parliament  goes  on  much 
longer  the  latter  will,  I  think,  be  very  necessary  to 
take  care  of  the  former.  It  will  be  curious  to  watch 
whether  this  Land  Bill  succeeds,  for  there  is  a  growing 
feeling,  I  think,  that  if  it  does  not,  the  Crown  Colony 
system  must  sooner  or  later  follow.  All  poHticians 
say  that  Gladstone's  management  of  the  Bill  in  the 
House  of  Commons  is  one  of  the  finest  things  he  has 
ever  done.  I  met  the  other  day  Sir  Thomas  Gladstone, 
the  elder  brother,  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  un- 
bending of  Tories,  and,  as  I  found,  an  old  friend  of 
my  father's  some  time  before  I  was  born.  He  once, 
I  beheve,  went  all  the  way  from  Scotland  to  Oxford 
to  vote  against  "the  Gladstone."  My  wife,  who  sat 
next  to  him,  said  something  about  what  a  wonderful 
man  his  brother  was.  "  Oh  yes,"  he  said,  "  much  too 
wonderful."' 

The  sanguine  expectations  which  Lecky  had  for  a 


^Dean  Stanley  died  on  July  18,  1881. 


EFFECTS   OF   LAND    ACT  181 

moment  entertained  about  the  Bill  under  the  spell  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's  eloquence  and  powers  of  persuasion 
vanished  before  the  reality. 

'  You  are  fortunate,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  in  the 
November  of  that  year,  'in  having  got  rid  of  your 
Irish  property.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  net  result 
of  Gladstone's  legislation  has  been  that  there  are  now 
two  predatory  bodies  instead  of  one  in  Ireland,  and  I 
do  not  know  whether  in  the  long  run  the  Land  Court 
may  not  prove  the  worst  of  the  two.' 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Act  of  1881,  by  creating 
dual  ownership,  increased  the  insecurity  of  property 
caused  by  the  agitation  which  it  did  not  help  to  allay. 
It  soon  became  apparent  that  the  Act  was  admin- 
istered in  a  different  spirit  from  what  was  intended. 
It  had  been  passed  on  the  assumption  that  excessive 
rents  alone  would  be  reduced,  but  now  a  wholesale 
reduction  of  rents  took  place  which  was  not  warranted 
by  the  custom  of  the  country  or  by  the  increase  in 
price  of  agricultural  produce.  More  than  once  at 
this  time  Lecky  championed  the  rights  of  the  Irish 
landlords  in  letters  to  the  Times}  In  his  '  Democ- 
racy and  Liberty'  he  has  characterised  the  Act  as 
one  of  the  most  unquestionable  and  indeed  extreme 
violations  of  the  rights  of  property  in  the  whole  history 
of  Irish  legislation;  he  has  described  the  disastrous 
results  of  this  Act  and  of  subsequent  ones  for  which 
both  Liberal  and  Conservative  Governments  have 
been  responsible,  and  he  uses  the  prophetic  words: 
'It  is  idle  to  suppose  that  such  a  precedent  can  be 
confined  to   Ireland,   Irish  land,   or  Irish  landlords.' 

Lecky   did   not   leave    London   till   the   middle   of 


>  Times  of  January  25  and  February  3,  1882.     Letters  signed 
'L.' 


182  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

August,  when  volume  iii.  was  printed,  and  he  con- 
tinued to  work  in  Holland  in  the  country  house  which 
his  brother-in-law  every  summer  placed  at  his  dis- 
posal. It  was  a  small  gabled  house,  of  the  early  part 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  situated  sixteen  kilometres 
from  the  town  of  Zwolle,  where  Thomas  a  Kempis 
was  born.  Like  most  Dutch  country  houses  of  the 
same  period,  it  was  surrounded  with  a  broad  moat. 
Lecky  always  admired  the  reflexions  in  the  water, 
which  were  as  clear  and  vivid  as  the  reality  itself. 
Woods  and  fresh-water  springs  made  the  place  a  cool 
summer  retreat,  and  the  rural  character  of  the  sur- 
rounding country,  with  its  corn  and  buckwheat  fields, 
its  picturesque  thatched  cottages  and  downs  of  purple 
heather,  was  very  restful  to  him  after  the  turmoil  of 
London.  Though  he  loved  the  mountains  best,  he  could 
appreciate  the  distant  horizon  of  a  flat  country,  the  ever 
varying  cloud  scenery  and  glorious  sunsets.  He  was  in- 
terested, in  the  lives  of  the  peasantry,  and  was  always 
struck,  not  only  with  their  proverbial  cleanliness,  but 
with  their  innate  good  taste  and  courteous  manners. 

On  his  return  to  London  in  September  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Daunt,  who  had  sent  him  his  'Catechism  of  the 
History  of  Ireland': 

'  You  know  I  do  not  agree  with  you  about  Home 
Rule  (which  would,  I  think,  be  the  most  perfect  of 
all  earthly  realisations  of  Pandemonium),  and  I  am 
sorry  that  you  think  it  right  to  write  (especially  for 
young  children)  in  so  extremely  anti-English  a  spirit; 
but  no  one  can  fail  to  admire  the  consistency  with 
which  you  have  clung  to  your  flag  and  the  vigour  and 
knowledge  with  which  you  put  forward  your  views. 
I  hope  your  very  honourable  protest  against  those 
who  consider  stealing  and  murdering  among  the  higher 
graces  of  patriotism  will  do  good,  though  I  fear  your 
more  "patriotic"  countrymen  will  consider  you  some- 


HYMN   WRITERS  183 

what  antiquated  and  backward.  I  must  say  the  Irish 
people  appear  to  me  to  have  been  of  late  doing  neai-ly 
all  that  a  nation  can  do  to  deprive  themselves  of  all 
the  honest  sympathies  of  Europe.' 

To  the  Rev.  Richard  Brooke,  who  had  sent  him  a 
collection  of  Latin  and  Greek  translations  of  hymns, 
which  revived  the  old  memory  of  the  Mariners'  Church 
at  Kingstown,  he  wrote: 

October  25,  1881.  — '  I  am  sorry  you  did  not  include 
in  your  collection  one  of  your  own  hymns  which  I 
have  from  very  old  days  particularly  admired,  that 

God  of  the  ocean  swell. 

Of  the  tempest  and  the  tide. 

I  never  knew  before  the  authorship  of  that  most 
beautiful  hymn  —  I  think  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
in  the  language  —  "In  trouble  and  in  grief,  0  God."* 

'  In  trouble  and  in  grief,  O  God, 

Thy  smile  has  cheered  my  way, 
Till  joy  hath  budded  from  each  thorn 

That  round  my  footsteps  lay. 

The  hours  of  pain  have  yielded  good 

Which  prosperous  days  refused, 
As  herbs,  though  scentless  when  entire, 

Spread  fragrance  when  they  're  bruised.  • 

The  oak  strikes  deeper  as  its  boughs 

By  furious  blasts  are  driven; 
So  life's  vicissitudes  the  more 

Have  fixed  my  heart  in  heaven. 

All  gracious  Lord,  whate'er  my  lot 

In  other  times  may  be, 
I  '11  welcome  still  the  heaviest  grief 
That  brings  me  near  to  Thee. 

(Rev.)  Richard  T.  P.  Pope. 
He  preached  his  last  sermon  in  the  Mariners'  Church  at  Kings- 
iovm  and  died  soon  after  in  1859. 


184  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE      LECKY 

How  strange  it  is  that  anyone  who  wrote  prose  in  such 
a  truly  demoniacal  spirit  as  Toplady  should  be  the 
author  of  so  many  beautiful  hymns!  I  am  just  at 
present  working  very  hard  indeed,  being  occupied 
with  printing  another  pair  of  '  Eighteenth  Century ' 
volumes,  which  I  hope  will  appear  in  the  spring,  and, 
as  usual,  having  a  good  deal  of  revision  of  one  end  of 
the  MS.  going  on  while  I  am  printing  the  other  end.' 


CHAPTER  VII 

1882-1886. 

Publication  of  volumes  iii.  and  iv.  of  the  'History'  —  American 
appreciation  —  Lord  Acton  —  Tour  in  Spain  —  Phoenix 
Park  murders  —  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt  —  Dublin  —  Madame 
Ristori  —  State  Papers  —  Condition  of  Ireland  —  Sir 
Charles  Gavan  Duffy  —  Trials  of  Phoenix  Park  murderers 

—  Tipperary  —  Jura  Mountains  —  Mr.  J.  R.  Green  — 
Transvaal  Delegates  —  M.  Mori  —  Switzerland  —  Amiel  — 
M.  de  Gonzenbach  —  Soudan  expedition  —  Gordon  —  Lord 
Wolseley  —  LL.D.  degree,  St.  Andrews — '  On  an  Old  Song ' 

—  Sir  Henry  Taylor's  Autobiography  —  Paris  Archives  — 
'The  Dawn  of  Creation  and  of  Worship.' 

Volumes  iii.  and  iv.  of  the  'History'  came  out  in 
April  1882:  they  ranged  over  a  period  of  twenty-four 
years,  and  great  part  of  them  was  devoted  to  the 
American  Revolution.  Lecky  was  afraid  that  the 
Americans  might  not  like  this  unbiassed  account  of 
this  period. 

'  I  greatly  fear,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Lea  before  the  vol- 
umes were  published,  'that  you  in  America  will  be 
displeased  with  them,  which  I  shall  be  very  sorry  for, 
as  I  have  no  feeling  whatever  of  an  unkindly  nature 
about  Americans,  but  you  can  hardly  expect  a  some- 
what conservative  English  or  Irish  man  to  write  about 
the  American  Revolution  in  the  spirit  of  Bancroft; 
and  after  all  it  is  not  a  great  censure  on  a  nation  to 
say  that  it  is  apt  rather  unduly  to  abuse  its  present  in 
comparison  to  its  past.     My  next  two  volumes  will 

185 


186  WILLIAM   EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

be  nearly  as  much  about  America  (they  extend  from 
1760-1784)  as  about  England,  and  my  reading  for  the 
last  two  years  has  been,  to  a  very  great  extent,  in 
American  books.' 

Lecky  was  much  pleased  to  find  that,  contrary  to 
his  apprehensions,  his  book  was  extremely  well  re- 
ceived in  America.  Most  of  the  American  reviews 
were  in  fact  full  of  appreciation  of  his  fairness  and 
impartiality,  the  thoroughness  of  his  investigations 
and  researches,  and  the  new  light  he  had  thrown  on 
the  subject;  and  it  was  thought  a  happy  coincidence 
that  his  book  had  come  out  the  same  day  as  Mr.  Ban- 
croft's 'Formation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. ' 

Eight  years  later  (July  30,  1890),  when  Dr.  Andrew 
D.  White,  President  of  Cornell  University,  congratu- 
lated him  on  the  completion  of  the  '  History,'  he  said : 

'It  was  only  last  night  that,  talking  with  our  Pro- 
fessor of  American  History,  Dr.  Tyler,  whom  you  may 
know  as  the  author  of  by  far  the  best  history  of  Ameri- 
can literature  and  an  admirable  Uttle  '  Life  '  of  Patrick 
Henry,  he  spoke  of  your  work  with  very  great  praise, 
and  told  me  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  recommending 
your  chapters  upon  the  War  of  Separation  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  American  Colonies  to  his  stu- 
dents. He  said  that  he  considered  them  by  their  per- 
fect judicial  fairness  one  of  the  very  best  means  of 
getting  the  coming  generation  of  American  students 
out  of  the  old  manner  of  thinking  upon  and  treating 
American  history,  which  has  led  to  so  much  Chau- 
vinism among  our  people.' 

In  England  the  new  volumes  fulfilled  the  expecta- 
tions of  the  reading  public  who  had  been  looking 
forward  to  them  with  interest.  His  American  Revo- 
lution, his  portraits  of  leading  men  —  Burke,  Franklin, 


VOLUMES    III.    AND    IV.    OF  THE    '  HISTORY  '      187 

Washington,  Fox,  Wilkes,  Shelburne  —  his  narrative  of 
Irish  events  in  which  he  was  considered  unrivalled, 
all  found  admirers.  '  I  have  only  skimmed  your  new 
volumes,'  wrote  Lord  Acton  soon  after  they  came  out, 
'but  I  hope  you  will  not  think  it  presumptuous  if  I 
write  my  mind  and  say  that  they  are  fuller  of  political 
instruction  than  an3^thing  that  has  appeared  for  a 
long  time.  .  .  .  Your  account  of  Burke  is  masterly  and 
you  cannot  rate  him  higher  than  I  do,  although  I 
should  wish  to  deepen  the  shadows,'  and  Lord  Acton 
proceeded  to  discuss  a  few  points  in  detail. 

He  thought  that  Lecky  had  emphasised  too  much 
the  anti-Christian  character  of  the  writings  of  Montes- 
quieu, Condillac,  even  Rousseau,  and  he  believed, 
'though  the  weight  of  your  authority  makes  me  hesi- 
tate,' that  the  ruin  of  the  French  finances  was  per- 
petrated during  the  peace;  he  questioned  whether 
Turgot  and  Adam  Smith  had  promulgated  the  same 
doctrine  independently,  but  he  chiefly  differed  from 
Lecky  in  his  estimate  of  Burke. 

'  I  shall  carefully  consider  the  points  you  raise  when 
revising  my  book  for  another  edition,'  Lecky  wrote 
to  Lord  Acton  from  Paris,  May  30,  1882.^  'It  is  criti- 
cisms of  this  kind  which  are  most  useful  to  an  author, 
and  I  am  always  most  grateful  for  them.  "I  hope  you 
will  forgive  me  if  I  have  a  httle  of  an  author's  obstinacy 
in  defending  some  of  the  points  you  have  impugned. 
.  .  .  The  Lettres  Persanes  of  Montesquieu  and  the 
whole  tendency  of  the  philosophy  of  Condillac  seem 
to  me  extremely  anti-Christian;  and  although  French 
finances  had  been  most  seriously  disordered  during 
the  peace,  I  think  it  was  the  American  War  which  con- 
summated the  work  of  Louis  XIV.  and  made  them 
absolutely    hopeless.     Is    there    any    evidence    that 


On  his  return  from  Spain. 


188  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Turgot  and  Adam  Smith  were  in  correspondence  or 
that  one  derived  his  doctrine  from  the  other? 

'  I  am  sorry  we  differ  so  much  about  Burke's  con- 
sistency. According  to  my  view  two  of  the  leading 
characteristics  of  the  Burke  of  Lord  Rockingham's 
day  were  (1)  an  intense  horror  of  the  leveUing,  equal- 
ising, democratic  type  of  Liberalism  which  was  then 
represented  by  the  Bill  of  Rights  men,  and  (2)  an 
equally  strong  conviction  that  reforms  should  be 
judged  not  so  much  on  their  own  merits  as  with  a 
view  to  times  and  seasons  and  special  circumstances. 
Such  a  statesman  must  necessarily,  I  think,  have  con- 
sidered the  French  Revolution  and  the  contagion  of 
French  principles  the  greatest  of  all  poHtical  dangers, 
and  I  do  not  in  the  least  see  that  he  was  inconsistent 
at  a  time  when  French  principles  were  in  the  ascendant 
and  when  he  considered  that  all  danger  came  from 
that  quarter  in  turning  against  the  Dissenters  and 
even  against  the  Slaves.  He  might  surely,  consist- 
ently with  his  principles,  think  that  this  was  not  a 
time  to  weaken  the  principle  of  authority,  to  encour- 
age in  any  form  the  rising  passion  for  democracy  or 
to  give  political  power  to  a  class  of  men  who  were 
largely  leavened  with  French  principles.  The  story 
about  the  sinecure  we  only  know  from  Walpole,  who 
was  bitterly  hostile  to  Burke;  and  nearly  at  the  same 
time  Burke  proved  very  clearly  his  integrity  by  re- 
ducing the  salary  of  his  own  office  and  by  resigning 
with  Fox  when  it  would  have  been  quite  easy  for  him 
to  have  retained  office.  Please  excuse  my  obstinacy 
on  these  points,  and  accept  my  best  thanks  both  for 
your  criticisms  and  for  your  favourable  judgment  of 
my  poUtical  views.  I  can  assure  you  that  the  letter 
has  gratified  me  greatly.' 

There  is,  of  course,  no  opinion  more  valuable  than 
that  of  an  able  critic  who  has  gone  over  the  same 
ground.  Sir  Alfred  Lyall,  writing  some  years  after, 
says: 


TOUR   IN   SPAIN  189 

'  I  suspect  that  your  account  of  the  actual  causes 
and  circumstances  that  produced  the  American  Revo- 
lution gave  a  new  view  of  the  facts  to  most  of  your 
audience  —  I  had  just  been  turning  over  again  those 
pages  of  your  "  History  "  in  search  of  some  information 
that  I  wanted  for  a  special  purpose.  I  had  not  realised 
until  after  hunting  through  several  other  histories  of 
eighteenth-century  periods,  how  much  your  work  was 
needed,  and  what  large  vacant  spaces  in  the  EngUsh 
historical  hbrary  it  has  filled  up.' 

Lecky  was  always  glad  to  get  away  at  the  time 
when  a  new  book  of  his  was  published.  He  had  long 
wished  to  revisit  Spain,  and  being  now  free  and  in 
want  of  a  holiday  he  started  with  his  wife  on  a  two 
months'  tour.  Beginning  with  Burgos  and  Valla- 
doHd,  two  typical  towns  of  Northern  Spain,  they  pro- 
ceeded to  the  Escorial,  which  they  reached  on  an 
April  morning.  Snow  was  still  on  the  ground;  the 
country  looked  bleak  and  desolate;  and  the  imposing 
mass  of  buildings  full  of  the  memories  of  Philip  II. 
rose  gloomy  and  austere  before  their  eyes.  They  stood 
in  the  small  room  where  Philip  died  and  whence  he 
could  look  on  the  high  altar;  and  it  seemed  as  if  the 
fanaticism  which  inspired  so  many  crimes  found  its 
explanation  in  these  surroundings.  At  Madrid  Lecky 
enjoyed  once  more  seeing  his  favourite  painter,  Ve- 
lasquez. He  had  had  copies  made  of  a  few  of  his 
paintings  by  the  Spanish  painter  Pineda,  who  had 
caught  some  of  the  spiiit  of  the  master.  The  '  Lanzas,' 
or  'Surrender  of  Breda,'  was  one  of  the  pictures  he 
admired  most  in  the  world.  At  Madrid,  as  in  many 
other  places,  he  and  his  wife  found  friends.  A  charm- 
ing and  clever  woman,  Madame  de  Riano,  took  them 
to  the  tapestry  manufactory,  where  they  saw  the 
women  at  work  as  Velasquez   painted   them  in   his 


190  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

'  Hilanderas/  showing  how  true  to  nature  the  great 
artist  was  and  how  unchanged  Spain  has  remained 
through  the  centuries.  They  attended  a  sitting  of 
the  Cortes,  and  though  a  commercial  treaty  is  not  an 
exciting  subject  of  debate,  it  interested  Lecky  to  get 
a  glimpse  of  the  centre  of  political  life  in  the  country. 
Seville,  with  its  Murillos,  its  blue  skies  and  orange 
trees,  patios  and  bright  costumes  at  the  time  of  the 
fair,  delighted  him: 

'Sunburnt  dancers  nightly  met 
With  gipsy  song  and  castanet, 
Where  the  coloured  lanthorns  gleam 
By  the  Guadalquivir's  stream, 
And  the  white  mantillas  flow 
Softer  than  the  falling  snow, 
And  the  deftly  quivering  fan 
Telling  more  than  language  can, 
And  the  roses  in  the  hair, 
And  the  scent  that  loads  the  air 
Rising  from  the  orange  grove 
Where  belated  lovers  rove 
Through  the  balmy  nights  of  spring, 
When  the  birds  most  sweetly  sing. 
But  not  half  so  sad  a  tale 
As  our  Northern  nightingale." 

They  followed  the  footprints  of  the  Moors  in  that 
enchanting  spot  Granada,  went  to  the  palm  groves  of 
Elche,  one  of  the  few  places  in  Spain  where  Lecky  had 
not  been,  and  stopped  at  Alicante,  which  they  thought 
an  ideal  seaside  place. 

In  Spain,  as  elsewhere,  Lecky  was  an  excellent 
guide   and  travelling   companion.     He  had  the  true 


" 'Seville,' Poems.  Lovers  of  song  of  the  nightingale  is 
nature  cannot  fail  to  notice  in  the  South  than  in  the 
how  much    more   joyous   the      North. 


TRAVELS    IN    SPAIN  191 

artistic  sense;  he  loved  nature  and  art;  he  saw  the 
world  from  its  humorous  side;  he  was  always  full  of 
thought  and  consideration  for  others;  and  as  long  as 
he  had  a  corner  all  to  himself,  where  he  could  be  abso- 
lutely quiet,  he  minded  the  discomforts  of  travelling 
but  little. 

*  We  have  had  on  the  whole  an  extremely  pleasant 
journey  in  Spain,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  from  Valencia, 
May  21,  1882;  'have  not  suffered  at  all  from  the  heat 
(for  though  the  sun  is  very  hot  the  air  is  not  at  all 
sultry),  and  have  found  the  discomforts  extremely 
exaggerated.  The  worst  are  the  length  of  the  railway 
journeys  and  the  horrid  hours  at  which  they  begin, 
the  perpetual  smoking,  and,  just  lately,  mosquitoes, 
without  the  defence  of  mosquito  curtains.  Seville 
I  think  the  most  fascinating  town  in  its  own  way  in 
the  world;  Granada  one  of  the  most  beautiful  places 
I  know,  and  the  Spanish  colouring  and  vegetation  not 
less  beautiful  than  the  Italian,  and  almost  totally 
different.  ...  I  have  been  absolutely  idle  and  am  getting 
very  impatient  to  get  back  to  work.  We  mean  to  be 
in  London  on  the  3rd  of  June,  and  I  hope  to  devote 
the  whole  summer  to  Irish  State  papers  in  London 
and  Dublin.  It  is  not  at  all  a  pleasant  period  to  write 
about.  ...  I  have  heard  very  little  about  my  book^ 
except  that  the  edition  of  2000  copies  is  pretty  nearly 
sold  out.     It  appears  to  have  gone  quicker  than  its 


1  On  receiving,  at  Seville,  a  voice  from  another  world,  and 

copy  of  his  new  book  which  I  can  hardly  realise,  amid  the 

had  come  out  during  his  ab-  palms  and  oranges  and  amid 

sence,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Long-  the  gorgeous  sunshine  of  this 

man:  'I  was  much  obliged  to  most    charming    city,    that    I 

you    for     sending    my    book,  have  so  lately  been  hard   at 

which  has    duly  arrived    and  work  upon  a  century  which  is 

seems   very  well  turned   out.  dead  and  buried.' 
It  appears  to  me  almost  like  a 


192  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

predecessor.  People  begin  to  talk  of  me  as  if  I  were 
another  "Judicious  Hooker,"  so  moderate,  so  judicial, 
&c.,  so  I  fear  I  must  be  growing  very  dull  and  am  afraid 
that  nothing  short  of  some  great  indiscretion  or  para- 
dox can  save  me.' 

One  terrible  piece  of  news  marred  his  enjoyment  in 
Spain,  that  of  the  Phoenix  Park  murders,  which  he 
read  in  a  Spanish  paper  at  Cordova.  It  seemed  too 
dreadful  to  be  true,  till  he  saw  it  confirmed  in  the 
English  papers.  He  had  seen  much  of  Mr.  Burke,  a 
devoted  public  servant  and  a  genial  man,  and  he  had  a 
great  regard  for  him  and  for  Lord  Frederick  Caven- 
dish, whose  appointment  had  seemed  of  good  promise 
for  Ireland.  Horror  and  grief  at  the  ci'ime  which  had 
deprived  the  country  of  the  services  of  two  such  men, 
and  sympathy  for  their  relations  were  uppermost  in 
his  mind,  while  he  could  not  but  feel  that  so  heinous  a 
deed,  which  was  evidently  the  act  of  an  organisation, 
crushed  all  prospect  of  a  speedy  improvement  in  the 
state  of  Ireland. 

On  the  return  to  London  he  went  through  a  course 
of  Record  Office  papers  for  his  new  volumes. 

A  letter  from  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt,  received  about 
this  time,  again  elicited  some  strong  views  about  the 
Irish  situation. 

June  11,  1882.  —  '  My  dear  Sir,  —  I  must  thank  you 
for  your  kind  letter,  and  am  much  disposed  to  agree 
with  you  that  our  old  landlord  ParUament  (a  body 
something  like  the  synod  of  the  disestablished  Church), 
whatever  may  have  been  its  faults  towards  the  Irish 
people,  gave  the  English  Government  little  or  no 
reason  to  complain  of  it.  So  far,  I  think  we  are  very 
much  at  one,  though  you  seem  to  me  to  exaggerate 
greatly  —  not  the  stupidity,  which  would  be  difficult, 
but  the  malevolence  of  the  Enghsh  Government  in 


PHCENIX    PARK    MURDERS  193 

its  later  stages,  and  I  cannot  at  all  agree  with  you  in 
thinking  Ireland  in  the  present  tlay  in  the  least  fitted 
for  Home  Rule.  However,  it  will  be  a  long  time  be- 
fore I  shall  have  accomplished  the  last  instalment  of 
my  book  —  so  long  that  it  makes  me  dizzy  to  think 
of  it.  The  more  I  read  of  Grattan  the  more  he  seems 
to  me  wise  and  respectable,  and  his  prediction  that 
Ireland  would  one  day  avenge  the  Union  by  sending 
into  the  English  Parliament  a  band  "of  the  greatest 
ruffians  in  the  universe"  appears  to  me  not  the  least 
remarkable  proof  of  his  prescience.' 

He  spent  the  latter  part  of  the  summer  at  Kings- 
town and  Dublin,  going  over  State  papers.  No  one 
who  did  not  live  through  that  anxious  period  can 
realise  the  alarming  condition  of  Ireland  at  the  time. 
In  spite  of  the  reward  of  £10,000  offered  by  the  Gov- 
ernment and  placarded  all  over  the  country,  the 
Phoenix  Park  murderei's  were  still  at  large,  which  only 
showed  too  clearly  the  sympathy  that  existed  with 
the  crime.  Landlords  and  officials  were  under  police 
protection.  The  Lord  Lieutenant  was  carefully 
guarded;  even  invited  guests  could  only  penetrate 
to  the  Vice-Regal  Lodge  with  a  password  and  between 
rows  of  mounted  soldiers.  Mr.  Trevelyan,  the  Irish 
Secretary,  walked  in  his  garden  followed  by  detectives. 
Outrages  were  still  frequent.^  A  feefing  of  insecurity 
had  taken  possession  of  everyone,  while  secret  societies 
were  burrowing  underground  and  sending  forth  emis- 
saries who,  as  Father  Healy  expressed  it,  no  more 
minded  shooting  a  man  than  shooting  a  crow.  The 
O'Connell  monument  was  unveiled  on  August  15 
under  the  auspices  of  Mr,  Parnell,  and  fears  of  a  dis- 
turbance   were    entertained.     Dublin    Castle,    where 


I  The  cold-blooded  murder  of  the  Joyce  family  at  Maamtrasna 
(on  Friday,  August  18,  1882)  was  a  terrible  instance. 
14 


194  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Lecky  went  every  day  to  read  State  papers,  was  closed 
that  day  and,  owing  to  some  alarming  information, 
specially  protected  by  cannon;  but  all  passed  off 
quietly,  and  neither  heads  nor  windows  were  broken. 
At  the  same  time  Mr.  Parnell  received  the  freedom  of 
the  city.  By  a  curious  coincidence,  Madame  Ristori 
had  come  to  Dublin  to  act  Lady  Macbeth,  She  had 
long  given  up  the  stage,  but  the  dramatic  instinct 
was  too  strong  for  her,  and  the  part  of  Lady  Macbeth 
specially  appealed  to  her.  By  long  and  careful  study 
she  had  conquered  the  difficulties  of  acting  in  a  foreign 
tongue.  She  was  taken  to  the  Phoenix  Park,  past  the 
spot  where  the  murders  had  been  committed,  and  she 
was  stirred  by  the  suggestion  that  the  scene  of  terror 
and  remorse  which  she  was  about  to  act  might  bring 
the  guilty  to  confession. 

'  For  the  last  two  months  we  have  been  between 
Kingstown  and  Dublin,'  wrote  Lecky  to  Mr.  Booth 
on  October  4,  1882,  'and  I  have  been  very  steadily 
reading  for  my  next  volumes.  My  principal  work  has 
been  a  long  series  of  confidential  papers  which  were 
sealed  by  Lord  Castlereagh  and  which  remained  un- 
opened for  more  than  seventy  years.  At  last,  in 
1876,  an  Act  of  Parhament  was  passed  authorising 
Sir  Bernard  Burke  to  open  them,  and  he  has  arranged 
them  according  to  dates,  but  except  as  far  as  was 
necessary  for  this  purpose,  they  have  been  entirely 
unexplored  till  now.  There  are  about  fifty  card- 
board boxes  full  of  letters  relating  to  the  last  twelve 
years  of  the  eighteenth  century  containing  confidential 
letters  of  the  magistrates  for  the  different  counties, 
and,  what  is  very  curious,  reports  of  the  different 
informers  who  were  in  the  service  of  the  Government 
during  the  United  Irishman  movement.  The  whole 
is  very  interesting,  but  I  fear  I  shall  find  it  quite  im- 
possible to   condense   my   Irish   History   of  the   last 


CONDITION    OF    IRELAND  195 

twenty  years  of  the  century  into  limits  at  all  propor- 
tioned to  the  other  parts  of  my  book.  .  .  .  We  have 
been  seeing  a  good  many  people  and  dined  once  at 
the  Vice-Regal  Lodge,  which  is  curiously  hkc  a  police 
barrack,  and  the  Lord  Lieutenant  rides  out  in  the 
middle  of  an  escort,  much  like  a  Russian  Czar.  They 
are  so  careful  that  there  is  a  password  given  out  for 
every  night.  On  the  whole,  however,  they  think 
things  are  improving  here.  People  are  getting  tired 
of  agitation,  and  crime  has  lately  been  punished.  I 
find  this  side  of  the  water  is  at  least  as  interesting  as 
the  other.  We  leave,  I  believe,  at  the  close  of  next 
week,  spend  a  few  days  at  Knowsley  with  the  Derbys, 
and  hope  to  be  in  London  about  the  21st.' 

38  Onslow  Gardens:  January  1,  1883.  —  '  Dear  Booth, 

—  My  first  letter  of  the  year  must  be  to  you  to  ask 
when  you  are  coming  to  town  and  how  you  are.  We 
are  not  stirring,  so  you  will  be  sure  to  find  me.  I  have 
been  rather  busy  (besides  regular  writing)  in  revising, 
as  a  second  edition  of  my  last  two  volumes  is  coming 
out  very  soon,  and  a  new  edition  (the  third)  of  the 
first  two  is  printing.  If  you  have  not  seen  the  last 
volume  of  Wilberforce's  Life,  it  will,  I  think,  amuse 
you,  though  you  are  not  as  ecclesiastical  as  I  am. 
There  is  an  amusing  description  of  one  of  Magee's 
sermons  by  our  old  friend  John  Gregg:  "It  was  bril- 
liant, eloquent,  well  delivered,  but  had  not  gospel 
enough  in  it  to  save  a  tomtit."  I  saw  Mahaffy  here 
to-day,  and  he  gives  rather  a  better  account  of  Ireland 

—  attributing  the  improvement  mainly  to  Lord 
Spencer.  It  is  curious  how  Irish  affairs  turn  us  all 
into  Tories.  My  old  friend  Mr.  Prendergast,  whose 
"Cromwellian  Settlement"  is  one  of  the  most  fiery 
w^rks  in  Irish  history  I  know,  has  quite  become  so; 
and,  as  far  as  I  can  find  out,  the  Catholic  gentry  are 
at  least  as  much  so  as  the  Protestant.  We  saw  a 
good  deal  of  Catholic  society  this  year  in  Ireland,  and 
I  was  much  struck  with  this  aspect  of  it.     I  hope  you 


196  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

like  Ryde.     I  suppose  you  have  settled  there  chiefly 
for  yachting  purposes.' 

Lecky's  relations  with  a  few  men  who  differed  from 
him  on  the  Home  Rule  question  show  how  a  divergence 
of  views  on  such  an  important  subject  did  not  exclude 
respect,  as  long  as  such  views  were  honest  convictions 
and  not  the  result  of  party  considerations.  Sir  Charles 
Gavan  Duffy  at  this  time  sent  him  his  '  Four  Years  of 
Irish  History,  1845-1849/  and  in  thanking  him  for 
this  'important  contribution  to  Irish  history/  Lecky 
said:  'It  must  have  been  a  somewhat  painful  task 
going  over  so  sad  a  story,  but  I  do  not  think  that  you 
have  any  reason  to  regret  that  you  are  outside  the 
arena  of  present  Irish  politics,  which  can  have  very 
few  attractions  to  honest  men.  You  have  certainly 
verified  much  more  than  most  men  the  "  coelum  non 
animum  mutant"  of  the  poet.' 

During  that  winter  the  Phoenix  Park  murderers  were 
at  last  discovered  and  brought  to  justice,  and  in  May, 
when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lecky  were  again  in  Dublin,  the 
trials  were  going  on.  Judge  O'Brien,  who  conducted 
them,  was  a  man  of  great  ability,  high  character, 
indomitable  courage,  and  a  fervent  Roman  Catholic  of 
the  ascetic  type.  He  was  a  master  of  quick  repartee, 
and  the  ghastliness  of  the  trials  was  sometimes  relieved 
by  that  touch  of  humour  which  in  Ireland  is  insepar- 
able from  even  the  most  tragic  situation.  For  many 
years  after  he  had  to  be  protected,  but  he  bore  it  with 
admirable  coolness.  It  was  a  striking  revelation  that 
the  men  who  had  commited  the  murders  were  not 
habitual  criminals,  but  belonged  to  the  respectable 
well-to-do  artisan  class.  One  of  them,  Curley,  was 
the  best  carpenter  in  Dublin,  and  a  well-conducted 
man.     There    was    something    very    pathetic    in    his 


TIPPEKARY  197 

warning  to  his  friends  before  he  was  hanged  that  they 
should  have  nothing  to  do  with  secret  societies.  Lecky 
and  his  wife  had,  as  usual,  a  very  warm  reception 
from  their  friends,  Sir  Bernard  and  Lady  Burke,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Mahaffy,  Chief  Justice  and  Lady  Morris, 
Father  Healy,  &c.  They  made  an  expedition  to  Tip- 
perary  with  Mr.  Prendergast,  and  paid  their  first  visit 
to  Newtown  Anner,  the  property  of  a  genial  hostess, 
the  Duchess  of  St.  Albans,  and  also  to  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Richard  BagwelP  at  Marlfield  on  the  banks  of  the  river 
Suir.  The  country  was  in  full  beauty,  with  all  the 
hawthorns  in  blossom  and  the  gardens  filled  with 
spring  flowers;  and  going  about  on  outside  cars  was 
particularly  exhilarating.  No  one  knew  that  part  of 
Ireland  better  than  Mr.  Prendergast,  who  had  gone  on 
circuit  there  in  former  days  and  who  seemed  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  every  family.  Together  they 
visited  the  old  castle  of  Carrick-on-Suir  and  the  more 
modern  manor  house  added  to  it  by  Thomas  Earl  of 
Ormonde,  the  friend  of  Queen  Elizabeth;  Kiltinan 
Castle,  the  former  seat  of  the  Lords  Dunboyne,  who 
lost  it  by  joining  the  Irish  rebellion  in  1641;  and  the 
rock  of  Cashel,  with  its  ancient  ecclesiastical  ruins. 
While  stopping  for  an  hour  in  the  little  inn  at  Cashel 
the  presence  of  the  travellers  became  known,  and  they 
had  an  amusing  visit  from  Mrs.  O'Connell  (nee  Bian- 
coni),  the  widow  of  Daniel  O'Connell's  son,  who  wished 
to  make  Lecky's  acquaintance.  After  this  short  holi- 
day he  remained  at  work  in  London  till  the  end  of  July. 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  July  22,  1883.  —'We  were  in  Ire- 
land for  about  three  weeks  at  Whitsuntide,  partly 
owing  to  one  of  my  notebooks  having  been  lost,  or, 


1  Mr.  BagTv^ell  is  the  author  of  Ireland  under  the  Tudors  and 
Ireland  under  the  Stuarts. 


198  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

as  I  believe,  burnt,  and  I  had  to  give  up  ten  days' 
work  in  the  Castle  to  replacing  it.  We  saw  a  good 
many  people,  among  others  the  judge  who  tried  the 
Phoenix  Park  murderers,  and  heard  a  good  deal  of 
what  is  going  on.  By  all  accounts,  there  is  a  pros- 
pect of  immediate  prosperity.  Crime  has  gone  down, 
prices  are  high,  rents  are  paid,  but  disaffection  is  deeper 
and  more  confident  than  ever,  and  the  best  judges,  I 
find,  utterly  at  sea  about  the  future.  I  hope  much 
that  the  peasant  proprietors  may  be  tried.  This  seems 
the  best  chance,  for  the  old  agrarian  type  is  quite 
broken,  and  the  character  of  the  people  is  demoralised 
to  a  degree  that  it  is  difficult  to  exaggerate.  I  do 
not  think  any  law  has  failed  more  completely  than 
the  Land  Act.  We  see,  as  usual,  a  good  many 
people.' 

He  went  after  that  for  a  short  trip  to  Switzerland, 
and  stayed  at  Miirren.  He  was  glad  to  find  that  he 
could  walk  much  the  same  as  formerly,  'and  in  this 
excellent  air,'  he  wrote  to  his  wife,  'one  feels  wonder- 
fully well,  scandalously  hungry,  and  ridiculously 
young.'  The  chief  object  of  his  journey  was  the  Lac 
de  Joux,  in  the  Jura  Mountains,  which  he  had  long 
wished  to  see.  He  thought  it  'very  beautiful  in  a 
quiet  kind  of  way  —  charmingly  wooded,  and  with 
one  lovely  mountain  walk  and  view.'  He  afterwards 
joined  his  wife  in  Holland  for  the  remainder  of  the 
summer,  and  was  back  in  London  in  October.  He 
was  working  at  the  chapters  in  his  fifth  volume,  which 
treated  of  English  and  foreign  affairs,  and  he  was  not 
sorry  to  be  for  a  while  outside  his  usual  Ii'ish  element 
and  to  concentrate  his  thoughts  on  other  portions  of 
his  book.  'Modern  Irish  politics,  leaders,  and  ideals 
disgust  me  so  thoroughly,'  he  wrote  at  this  time, 
'  that  I  confess  it  is  no  small  relief  to  me  to  turn  away 
from  the  subject.' 


TRANSVAAL  DELEGATES  199 

He  had  now  lost  many  friends:  Carlylo  and  Dean 
Stanley  had  died  the  same  year;  Mr.  Greg,  author  of 
'The  Enigmas  of  Life,'  had  soon  followed  them;  Lord 
Russell,  too,  had  gone.  Mr.  Green,  the  historian,  died 
in  the  March  of  1883,  and  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Green  shows 
how  much  Lecky  felt  the  loss: 

'The  news  to-day  will  make  many  sad  hearts  where- 
ever  the  EngUsh  language  is  spoken,  but  few  sadder 
than  in  Onslow  Gardens.  I  have  always  thought 
Mr.  Green  one  of  the  two  most  remarkable  examples 
I  have  ever  known  of  mind  triumphing  over  body, 
and  of  character  keeping  all  its  brightness  and  beauty 
unimpaired  through  long  continued  physical  suffering. 
It  must  be  a  comfort  to  you  to  know  how  much  you 
have  brightened  these  last  weary  years,  and  also  how 
much  that  is  noble  and  enduring  Mr.  Green  has  left 
behind  him  in  spite  of  all  the  difficulties  of  his  life.' 

During  the  winter  of  1883-1884  the  Transvaal  Depu- 
tation was  in  London  to  obtain  a  modification  of  the 
Convention  of  1881.  The  enthusiasms  of  the  British 
public  —  society  included  —  are  sometimes  unaccount- 
able. They  went  into  raptures  over  Cetewayo,  the 
Zulu  king,  but  they  took  no  interest  in  the  Transvaal 
delegates,  who  were  in  their  way  very  remarkable 
men. 

Lecky  had  been  more  or  less  interested  in  South 
Africa  from  the  time  that  he  saw  much  of  Bishop 
Colenso  in  London  in  the  sixties,  and  he  had  known 
many  of  those  who  went  out  there  either  as  Governors 
or  soldiers  —  among  them  Sir  George  Colley,  an  old 
family  friend,  whose  tragic  fate  was  a  great  shock  to 
him.  Sir  Bartle  Frere  was  also  a  friend  of  his,  and 
while  he  was  Governor  of  Cape  Colony  he  and  his 
family  kept  their  friends  in  touch  with  South  African 
affairs.     In   the    course   of   time    Lecky   became    ac- 


200  WILLIAM   EDWARD    HARTPOLE   LECKY 

quainted  with  many  South  Africans  of  note  who  came 
to  London,  and  whom  he  and  his  wife  were  always 
pleased  to  see;  and  they  were  glad  on  this  occasion 
to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  Transvaal  delegates. 
President  Kruger  and  General  Smit  did  not  speak  a 
word  of  English  and  were  wholly  ignorant  of  our 
European  conventionalities,  but  Lecky  was  struck 
with  their  strong  individuality  and  original  views. 
The  Transvaal  was  then  emerging  from  its  struggle 
for  independence.  Gold  had  been  discovered  within 
the  last  few  years,  much  to  the  regret  of  the  President, 
who  foresaw  trouble;  but  Johannesburg  had  not  yet 
sprung  up  like  a  mushroom  —  the  Uitlander  was  an 
unknown  quantity.  President  Kruger  was  touching  in 
his  humility.  'We  have  had  the  name  of  being 
cowardly  Boers  and  we  have  had  the  name  of  being 
ignorant  Boers,'  he  said.  'The  present  generation 
has  redeemed  our  reputation  for  cowardice;  it  is  for 
the  next  to  redeem  our  reputation  for  ignorance.' 
They  had  a  great  belief  in  the  future  of  the  Dutch- 
African  race,  and  dreamed  of  a  Federated  South 
Africa  under  one  flag.  Lord  Derby  was  very  civil  to 
them,  and  gratified  them  by  leaving  out  the  word 
'suzerainty'  in  the  new  Convention;  while  the  para- 
mountcy  of  England  in  all  that  was  important  —  the 
foreign  relations  of  the  Transvaal  as  well  as  their  rela- 
tions with  the  natives  —  was  maintained.  They  went 
away  satisfied,  and  much  impressed  with  the  greatness 
of  England.  Many  years  afterwards  —  in  1896  ^  —  at 
the  opening  meeting  of  the  T.C.D.  Historical  Society, 
when  the  South  African  situation  was  the  subject  of 
discussion,  Lecky  gave  his  impressions  of  President 
Kruger : 


1  The  year  of  the  Jameson  raid. 


PRESIDENT    KRUGER  201 

'They  [the  Transvaal  Boers]  have  at  their  head  a 
man  who,  with  greatly  superior  abilities,  represents 
very  faithfully  their  characters,  ideals,  and  wishes. 
I  can  speak  of  him  with  some  personal  knowledge. 
He  has  been  more  than  once  in  my  house,  and  1  have 
come  in  contact  with  several  men  who  have  known 
him  well.  In  many  respects  he  resembles  strikingly 
the  stern  Puritan  warrior  of  the  Commonwealth  —  a 
strong,  stubborn  man,  with  indomitable  courage  and 
resolution,  with  very  little  tinge  of  cultivation,  but, 
with  a  rare  natural  shrewdness  in  judging  men  and 
events,  he  impresses  all  who  come  in  contact  with  him 
with  the  extraordinary  force  of  his  nature.  He  is 
the  father  of  no  less  than  seventeen  children.  He 
belongs  to  a  sect  called  the  Doppers,  which  is  derived 
from  a  Dutch  word  for  an  extinguisher,  because  they 
are  desirous  of  extinguishing  all  novelties  since  the 
Synod  of  Dort.^  Ardently  religious,  he  is  said  to  be- 
lieve as  strongly  as  Wesley  in  a  direct  personal  inspi- 
ration guiding  him  in  his  acts.  He  is  a  great  hunter 
of  the  most  savage  wild  beasts.  One  finger  is  wanting 
on  one  of  his  hands;  it  was  broken  in  a  hunting  expedi- 
tion, and  it  is  a  characteristic  trait  that  he  then  and 
there  amputated  it  himself.  In  a  semi-regal  position, 
and  with  even  more  than  regal  power,  he  lives  the  life 
of  a  peasant;  and  though,  I  believe,  essentially  a  just, 
wise  and  strong  man,  he  has  all  his  countrymen's  dread 
of  an  immigration  of  an  alien  element,  arid  all  their 
dislike  and  suspicion  of  an  industrial  and  mining 
community.' 

During  that  winter  Lecky  saw,  among  other  people, 
a  good  deal  of  the  Japanese  Minister,  M.  Mori,  who 
told  him  the  gratifying  fact  that  there  was  a  Japanese 
translation  of  his  'Rationalism'  and  'Morals,'  which 
was  used  at  the  University  in  Japan.  M.  Mori,  a 
very  able  man,  returned  to  Japan  soon  after,  where 

*  This  was  the  explanation  given  by  one  of  the  delegates. 


202  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

he  was  appointed  Minister  of  Education,  and,  to  the 
horror  of  his  friends,  murdered  by  a  fanatic. 

Lecky's  advice  and  co-operation  were  often  asked, 
especially  in  Irish  matters. 

'  I  had  an  experience  to-day,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth, 
March  5,  1884,  'which  was  quite  new  to  me,  having 
been  asked  to  go  with  Lord  Castletown  and  a  few 
others  on  a  deputation  to  Childers  to  represent  the 
necessity  of  the  Government  advancing  more  money 
for  the  purchase  by  tenants  of  Irish  land.  Cliilders 
was  very  amiable  and  asked  very  intelligent  questions; 
but  I  do  not  think  we  learnt  anything,  except  that 
the  Government  have  been  of  late  studying  several 
plans  with  this  object,  that  they  will  probably  make 
an  announcement  in  six  weeks  or  two  months,  and 
that  they  greatly  dread,  in  a  country  where  the  ma- 
jority of  the  people  seem  to  want  separation,  con- 
stituting themselves  mortgagees  of  Irish  land.  How 
Ireland  is  ever  to  be  governed,  or  how  Parliament 
here  is  to  work  or  party  government  to  exist  when 
we  have  eighty  or  ninety  Parnellites  (which  we  are 
very  likely  to  have),  passes  my  comprehension.' 

The  lowering  of  the  franchise  in  Ireland,  which  was 
included  in  the  new  Franchise  Bill,  against  the  opposi- 
tion of  those  who  knew  Ireland  and  Irish  interests 
best,  was  strongly  denounced  by  him  at  the  time. 
He  thought  that,  though  the  extension  of  the  fran- 
chise might  now  have  become  a  political  necessity  in 
England,  it  was  never  likely  to  do  any  good  commen- 
surate with  the  enormous  evil  it  would  do  in  Ireland, 
and  through  Ireland  to  Parliamentary  government; 
and  the  obvious  evil  effects  that  were  expected  from 
it  did  not  fail  to  show  themselves.^ 


'  See  Democracy  and  Liberty,  cabinet  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  28. 


WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 
From  a  Photograph  by  Elliott  d'  Fry 


SWITZERLAND  203 

The  summer  was  spent  in  the  mountains  of  Switzer- 
land, at  Engelberg,  Bi'irgcnstock,  Berne,  and  finally 
at  Lausanne,  where  he  always  went,  from  old  associa- 
tion, to  the  Hotel  Gibbon.  He  liked  to  recall  the 
feelings  with  which  Gibbon  paced  up  and  down  the 
terrace  before  writing  the  last  pages  of  the  book  that 
had  been  his  companion  for  so  many  years. 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  Hotel  Gibbon,  Lausanne:  October  3, 
1884.  —  '  My  dear  Booth,  —  I  suppose  you,  like  the 
rest  of  the  world,  are  now  going  home  after  the  very 
beautiful  summer  —  and,  1  hope,  much  the  better 
for  the  sea.  We  have  been  for  the  last  two  months 
in  different  places  high  up  in  the  mountains  in  Switzer- 
land, are  now  going  to  Paris,  and  hope  to  be  settled 
at  work  in  London  about  the  20th.  I  hope  very  much 
we  may  meet  there.  It  is  rather  a  bore  all  the  twaddle 
in  Parliament  beginning  so  soon.  I  am  on  the  House 
of  Lords  side,  but  I  was  rather  startled  lately  by  a 
very  clever  old  gentleman  who  was  Secretary  of  State 
for  this  country  and  for  some  time  the  leader  of  the 
Conservative  party  in  Switzerland.  The  result  of  his 
Swiss  experience  is  that  he  is  a  strong  advocate  of 
universal  suffrage,  wliich  he  maintains  is  essentially 
and  strongly  conservative.  Many  years  ago  he  wrote 
a  diplomatic  memorial  in  support  of  this  view,  which 
Bismarck  read  at  Frankfort;  and  when  the  present 
German  Constitution  was  to  be  drawn  up,  Bismarck 
sent,  through  the  German  Minister,  to  my  friend  for 
a  copy  of  his  memorial,  saying  he  wished  to  lay  it 
before  the  Prince  Imperial,  who  strongly  objected  to 
universal  suffrage  being  introduced  into  Germany  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  a  revolutionary  thing.  When 
the  German  Constitution  was  finally  settled  Bismarck 
sent  another  message  to  my  friend,  saying,  "  You  may 
say  of  it,  'quorum  pars  magna  fui.'" 

'  I  hope  we  are  not  going  into  a  European  war.  The 
French  and  German  newspapers  are  both  writing  about 


204  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

US  in  a  most  minacious  way.  I  have  still  about  a  year's 
work,  alas!  before  my  next  two  volumes  will  be  in  a 
state  to  begin  printing.  I  rather  dread  the  winter, 
as  my  eyes,  though  not  at  all  organically  wrong,  are 
weak,  and  I  cannot  read  much  by  candle  light,  which 
makes  a  great  difference  to  me.  However,  I  never 
mean  to  write  a  book  of  much  research  after  this  one. 
It  has  taken  up  a  great  many  years  of  my  hfe.  I  am 
here  in  the  house  on  the  site  of  that  where  Gibbon 
wrote  his  "History."  I  heard  a  gentleman  and  lady 
discussing  what  it  was  that  Gibbon  wrote !  The  gentle- 
man thought  it  was  a  history  of  England;  the  lady 
assured  him  it  was  the  "  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire."  "Oh,  well,"  the  gentleman  said,  "if  he  had 
written  a  history  of  England  somebody  might  have 
read  it,  but  who  would  read  a  history  of  the  Roman 
Empire?"     Such  is  the  fate  of  historians! 

'  A  very  striking  book  of  a  rare  kind  has  lately  come 
out  in  French,  the  "Journal  Intime"  of  Amiel,  a 
Geneva  professor  who  did  nothing  in  particular,  but 
was  accustomed  to  keep  a  curious,  introspective  and 
somewhat  morbid  diary  recording  his  own  feelings 
and  behefs  and  his  judgment  of  the  systems  and  writers 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  It  (especially  the 
second  volume)  is  quite  a  chef  d'oouvre  of  its  kind.' 

The  Swiss  statesman  of  whom  Lecky  speaks  was 
M.  de  Gonzenbach,  a  friend  of  old  days  at  the  House 
in  the  Wood.  He  was  a  man  full  of  knowledge  and 
with  a  very  shrewd  judgment.  He  had  known  many 
of  the  remarkable  men  of  his  time,  and  he  was  a  most 
agreeable  companion  and  a  very  kind  friend.  His 
'  Life  of  General  von  Erlach '  ^  was  a  vindication  of 
that  soldier's  reputation.  Lecky  and  his  wife  rarely 
went   to    Switzerland    without   paying   him    and    his 


1  A  soldier  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War  who  had  been  accused  of 
taking  a  bribe  from  France. 


LL.D.    DEGREE,    ST.    ANDREWS  205 

family  a  visit  near  Bernc.^  His  eldest  son,  married 
to  an  Englishwoman,  owned  an  old  castle  on  the  Lake 
of  Zug,  where  Holbein  once  lived,  and  which  Lecky 
visited  with  great  interest. 

During  the  winter  of  1885  Egypt  was  the  all-absorb- 
bing  subject  on  account  of  the  Soudan  expedition. 
Gordon  had  a  hold  over  the  English  people  such  as 
few  public  men  have  had,  and  his  fate  moved  them  to 
an  extraordinary  degree.  Lecky  described  him  as  'a 
type  of  simple,  self-sacrificing,  religious  heroism  which 
is  in  its  own  kind  as  perfect  as  anything  even  in  the 
legends  of  chivalry.'  There  was  a  romantic  interest 
attaching  to  the  expedition  commanded  by  Lord 
Wolseley,  who  not  only  inspired  absolute  confidence 
as  a  soldier  and  a  strategist,  but  who  had  endeared 
himself  to  the  English  people  and  to  his  many  friends, 
of  whom  Lecky  was  one,  by  his  kindness  of  heart,  his 
great  simplicity  and  sincerity,  and  his  boyish  and 
unfailing  high  spirits.  The  example  of  his  devoted 
wife,  who  in  those  anxious  days  was  always  bright  and 
hopeful,  encouraged  many  whose  husbands  were  away 
in  the  same  expedition. 

Lecky  had  hoped  to  publish  the  next  two  volumes 
of  the  'History'  in  October  1885,  but,  as  usually  hap- 
pens, he  saw  'Alps  on  Alps  arise,'  and  found  that,  in 
spite  of  hard  and  steady  work,  he  would  not  be  able 
to  publish  his  book  before  the  following  October.  In 
January  1885  the  honorary  degree  of  LL.D.  was  con- 
ferred upon  him  at  St.  Andrews.  Lord  Reay,  a  friend 
of  his,  was  the  Lord  Rector,  and  had  just  been  ap- 
pointed Governor  of  Bombay.  Lecky  wrote  from  St. 
Andrews: - '  All  has  gone  off  well.  Lord  Reay's  address 
was  very  good  and  well  received,  and  not  too  long, 


*  M.  de  Gonzenbach  died  in  1887.  ^  To  his  wife. 


206  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

and  its  delivery  was  especially  admirable,  as  he  only 
arrived  a  few  hours  before  from  London.  There  are 
a  number  of  very  agreeable  people  here  who  have  been 
very  kind  and  cordial,  and  I  had  a  pleasant  dinner  last 
night  at  Principal  TuUoch's.  ...  It  is  an  interesting 
place,  which  I  am  glad  to  have  seen.  ...  I  find  myself 
called  Doctor  to  a  rather  alarming  extent.  .  .  .  ' 

In  the  February  number  of  Macmillan's  Magazine 
there  appeared  a  poem  of  his,  '  On  an  Old  Song,'  which 
took  people  by  surprise,  and  which  was  generally 
admired.  He  had  always  had  a  great  love  of  poetry. 
He  had  been  in  the  habit  in  boyhood  of  expressing 
his  thoughts  in  verse,  and  in  leisure  moments  he  con- 
tinued to  indulge  his  poetic  fancy.  He  contemplated 
publishing  sooner  or  later  a  small  volume  of  poetry 
which  he  had  written  at  different  times,  but  he  was 
diffident  about  doing  it,  and  wanted  to  feel  his  way  by 
sending  particular  poems  to  magazines.  He  published 
the  verses  already  quoted  on  Seville  in  Longman's 
Magazine,  October  1891. 

Among  the  many  books  which  he  was  frequently 
receiving  from  their  authors  there  was  one  at  this 
time  which  gave  him  peculiar  pleasure  —  the  Auto- 
biography of  his  friend  Sir  Henry  Taylor  —  as  the 
following  letter  shows: 

March  28,  1885. — 'Dear  Sir  Henry, —I  must  not 
delay  any  longer  thanking  you  for  your  great  kind- 
ness in  sending  me  your  Autobiography.  I  have 
already  spent  many  hours  over  it  with  the  keenest 
pleasure,  and  hope  to  spend  many  more.  I  am  not 
a  good  critic,  and  I  feel  strongly  how  difficult  it  is  to 
estimate  coldly  a  book  which  brings  with  it  so  many 
personal  interests  and  recollections,  but  I  feel  convinced 
that  all  good  judges  will  admit  that  no  biography 
which  has  appeared  in  England  for  many  years  has 


SIR  HENRY  Taylor's  autobiography        207 

been  written  in  such  exquisitely  beautiful  English 
(to  me  one  of  the  greatest  of  pleasures),  and  that  few, 
if  any,  contain  so  much  wisdom  and  so  much  wit. 
There  arc,  of  course,  some  things  in  it  which,  with  my 
turn  of  mind,  1  should  not  have  published,  but  there 
is  certainly  nothing  that  can  give  offence,  and,  I  think, 
very  httle  that  will  fail  to  interest.  If  you  had  been 
born  twenty  years  later  your  book  would  have  been 
much  more  a  history  of  opinions  than  it  is.  I  Uke 
best  the  portraits,  which  seem  to  me  perfect  master- 
pieces and  make  me  a  little  agree  with  Archbishop 
Whately  in  wishing  you  had  devoted  rather  more  of 
your  hterary  life  to  prose.  It  is  strange,  though,  that 
in  describing  Mrs.  Norton  and  her  two  sisters  you 
had  been  so  struck  with  their  mental  brilliancy  that 
you  do  not  even  mention  their  beauty,  though  they 
were  thought  the  Gunnings  of  their  generation!  I 
should  hardly  have  expected  this  from  one  who  likes 
"any  woman  better  than  any  man."  Rogers'  defence 
of  his  ill-natured  sayings  I  have  heard  put  in  a  form 
which  is,  I  think,  slightly  (very  slightly)  better  than 
yours:  "My  voice  is  so  weak  that  no  one  would  listen 
to  me  if  I  did  not  say  ill-natured  things."  Biographies 
are  generally  sad  things,  for  they  generally  end  sadly, 
but  this  is  certainly  not  the  impression  which  yours 
will  make,  and  there  is  a  great  deal  in  your  tone  and 
philosophy  of  life  which  is  well  fitted  to  do  us  all  good 
in  this  later,  pessimistic  and  somewhat  feverish  gen- 
eration.' 

In  the  spring  Lecky  was  again  in  Ireland,  and  after 
spending  part  of  the  summer  in  Holland  he  went  to 
Paris  to  read  in  the  Archives.  There  he  worked  in  a 
crowded  room  chiefly  filled  with  lady  copyists,  and 
found  the  ink  of  eighteenth-centuiy' manuscripts  very 
pale  and  trying  to  the  eyes. 
.  He  wrote  from  Paris : ' 


1  To  his  wife  at  Amsterdam. 


208  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

Hotel  du  Louvre:  September  29,  1885.  —  '  My  eyes  are 
not  as  weak  as  they  have  sometimes  been,  but  suffi- 
ciently so  to  make  MS.  work  (which  I  generally  like) 
very  disagreeable.  I  only  want  to  be  able  to  do  three 
hours  a  day,  and  am  quite  content  to  be  idle  for  the  rest 
of  the  day.  There  is  a  certain  M.  Noel,  whose  French 
school  books  I  dare  say  you  have  had  to  go  through, 
who  was  a  secret  agent  in  England  and  who  wrote 
innumerable  dispatches  in  a  minute  handwriting 
which  is  now  a  great  trial  to  me.  Except  these  three 
hours,  I  am  doing,  I  may  say,  nothing.  ...  I  went  on 
Sunday  to  St.  Cloud,  which  was  very  pretty  indeed. 
.  .  .  The  full  tide  of  electioneering  is  flowing,  and  is 
curious  to  watch.  The  SociaUst  element  predominates 
in  the  addresses,  and  there  is  a  great  Socialist  meeting 
to-night  under  Rochefort's  auspices.' 

In  a  letter  of  October  2,  he  says  that  he  received  a 
request  'to  write  in  the  new  Liberal  manifesto  volume 
"  Why  I  am  a  Liberal,"  which  I  have  pithily  declined 
on  the  ground  that  I  am  going  to  vote  for  a  Conserva- 
tive.' 

Paris:  October  4.  — '  My  eyes  are  much  better,  per- 
haps I  may  say  all  right,  but  I  am  rather  afflicted  with 
the  extreme  minuteness  of  Talleyrand's  handwriting. 
It  is  as  if  written  with  a  crow's  feather,  and  I  rather 
think  I  shall  buy  a  magnifying  glass  on  Monday  to 
finish  it.  My  Irish  papers  may  give  me  more  to  do 
than  I  know  of.  I  have  got  some  copied  out.  If 
(as  I  am  inclined  to  think)  I  go  back  the  end  of  this 
week,  I  shall  have  at  a  later  period  to  do  a  Uttle  more 
work  here;  but  as  it  is  only  for  the  seventh  volume 
there  is  no  hurry  about  it.  I  see  that  Mr.  Eliot 
Norton  is  going,  "by  request  of  the  family,"  to  pubHsh 
in  America  the  correct  version  of  the  "Reminiscences" 
ofCarlyle.'i    

1  Among  the  inaccuracies  in  there  was  an  amusing  one 
the    book    as    first    published      about  Sir  Henry  Taylor  which 


PARIS   ARCHIVES  209 

Paris:  October  6.  —  'I  finished  to-day  all  of  my 
archives  that  is  necessary  for  my  present  purpose. 
One  volume  —  a  great  folio,  duly  numbered  —  they 
told  me  when  I  asked  for  it  that  they  simply  could 
not  find  it!  It  is  quite  extraordinary  to  me  how 
badly  these  arcliives  are  arranged  and  catalogued 
and  bound,  and  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  find  wliere 
any  particular  paper  is.  They  have  a  very  proper 
rule  that  papers  later  than  1814  are  not  to  be  shown, 
but  instead  of  keeping  these  papers  together  they 
bind  them  with  others  of  a  much  earlier  date,  which 
it  becomes  impossible  in  consequence  to  see.  One 
of  the  reserved  volumes  I  found  containing  one  or 
more  papers  as  early  as  1763.  .  .  .  Everyone  seems 
extremely  impressed,  and  most  people  much  surprised, 
at  the  result  of  the  election,  which  is  the  first  great 
blow  to  the  Republic  since  its  foundation  after  the 
war.  I  hope  it  may  have  some  conservative  influence 
on  our  own  election,  but  here  the  first  object  of  Con- 
servatives is  to  make  another  revolution! ' 

The  following  letter,  written  to  a  friend  who  wished 
for  information  concerning  the  Irish  question,  shows 
what  loyal  Irishmen  felt  about  the  situation: 

Paris:  October  8,  1885.  — '  I  think  you  would  find 
the  "Essay  on  Irish  Disturbances,"  by  Sir  Cornewall 
Lewis  (Lord  Palmerston's  Chancellor  of  the  Excheq- 
uer), very  useful  to  you,  and  also  Senior's  "Conversa- 
tions on  Ireland,"  in  two  volumes.  He  was  a  very 
eminent  political  economist,  who  travelled  much  in 
Ireland  after  the  famine  to  examine  its  circumstances, 
and  who  had  long  conversations  (which  he  relates) 
with  many  of  the  leading  men  in  the  country.     I  was 


perplexed  his  friends.     He  was      be    in    the    original,    '  marked 
described  as  a  person  of  'mor-      veracity.' 
bid  vivacity,'  which  proved  to 
15 


210  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

re-reading  this  book  very  lately  at  Vosbergen  * — ■ 
where,  by  the  way,  there  is  an  excellently  selected 
collection  of  books  relating  to  Ireland  —  and  I  was 
much  struck  with  its  fidelity  and  value.  .  .  .  We  are 
threatened  this  winter  with  a  general  strike  for  re- 
duced rents,  and  there  is  an  organised  system  of 
intimidation  throughout  the  country  which  is  vastly 
more  powerful  and  terrible  than  English  law.  Trial 
by  jury  in  agrarian  cases  hardly  ever  succeeds,  unless 
exceptional  laws  are  in  force.  One  of  Gladstone's 
measures,  reducing  greatly  the  qualifications  for  jury- 
men, has  almost  destroyed  it,  and  the  discourage- 
ment of  all  the  loyal  classes,  who  see  the  most  vital 
Irish  interests  habitually  treated  as  mere  counters 
in  the  English  party  game,  is  beyond  expression.' 

He  went  to  Trianon  and  to  Chartres,  and  returned 
to  London,  whence  he  wrote:  United  Service  Club: 
October  10.  —  '  My  first  sensation  on  arriving  is  gener- 
ally how  wonderful  it  is  that  anyone  should  live  here 
who  can  live  in  any  brighter  climate.' 

He  received  at  this  time  a  request  to  lecture  at  Man- 
chester, and  to  write  a  sketch  of  modern  history  for  a 
new  compilation  —  all  of  which  he  refused,  according 
to  his  habit,  as  he  wished  to  concentrate  all  his  energies 
on  his  book.  '  I  have  been  working  very  steadily  a  good 
many  hours  of  the  twenty-four,'  he  wrote,-  '  and  have 
got  through  a  good  deal.'  By  the  end  of  October  he 
finished  a  long  chapter  in  which  he  had  embodied  the 
results  of  his  Paris  work,  the  twenty -second  chapter  of 
the  History.  He  frequently  dined  with  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  at  the  United  Service  Club  —  where  the 
members  of  the  Athenseum  received  hospitality  while 
their  club  was  undergoing  the  yearly  cleaning  process  — 


'  His  brother-in-law   Baron  ^  Xo  his  wife, 

van  Dedem's  country  house. 


M.    REVILLK    AND    MR.    CLADSTOXE  211 

and  he  was  amused  with  Mr.  Spencer's  ingenious  com- 
parisons between  the  two  clubs.  '  He  is  much  struck 
with  the  force  of  traditional  matter  —  the  soldiers 
still  call  their  club  the  United  Service  Club,  "a  name 
intrinsically  absurd,  as  one  thing  cannot  be  united." 
. . .'  '  Gladstone,  as  you  have  probably  seen,  is  thinking 
of  "the  dawn  of  creation  and  of  worship"  instead  of 
the  theories  of  Mr.  Chamberlain,  and  is  just  going  to 
publish  an  article  on  that  subject.' 

The  article  was  an  answer  to  M.  Reville,  who  had 
come  before  the  British  public  as  Hibbert  Lecturer 
in  1884.^  In  his  'Prolegomena  of  the  History  of 
Religions '  —  which  had  been  translated  into  English 
the  same  year  —  he  had  refuted  some  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
views.  M.  Reville  had  begun  his  career  as  pastor  of 
the  French  Protestant  church,  and  had  been  the  first 
to  occupy  the  chair  of  the  History  of  Religions  at  the 
College  de  France.  He  was  in  fact  a  pioneer  in  that 
branch  of  learning  to  the  study  of  which  he  devoted 
his  life,  and  he  combined  with  great  earnestness  all 
the  French  y?.nesse  d' esprit  which  gave  a  peculiar  charm 
to  his  lectures.  Lecky  had  seen  much  of  him  and  his 
wife  in  London  and  followed  the  controversy  with 
interest.  When  M.  Reville  sent  him  his  reply  to  Mr. 
Gladstone  and  consulted  him  about  getting  it  trans- 
lated, Lecky  thought  the  quickest  way  was  to  do  it 
himself;  and  it  was  also  the  best.  '  Je  suis  tout  confus, 
mais  aussi  bien  reconnaissant,'  wrote  M.  Reville.  'Je 
n'aurais  pas  ose  compter,  sur  un  tel  honneur  et  un  tel 
avantage.' 


1  'On  the  Religions  of  Mexico  and  Peru.' 


CHAPTER  VIII 

1886-1888. 

Anticipations  of  Home  Rule  Bill  —  Letters  to  the  Times  —  Split 
in  the  Liberal  Party  —  Speech  in  Kensington  Town  Hall  — 
On  a  Nationalist  Parliament  —  Sir  W.  Harcourt  and  Grat- 
tan's  Parliament  —  Demand  for  the  '  Leaders '  —  Defeat 
of  Home  Rule  Bill  —  Completion  of  volumes  v.  and  vi. 
of  the  '  History '  —  Travels  —  Lake  of  Geneva  —  Publica- 
tion of  the  new  volumes  —  Letters  and  Reviews  —  Holiday 
in  Italy  —  Irish  Vice-Royalty  —  Jubilee  —  Tour  in  the 
Harz  —  Paris  Archives  —  Canon  Miles  —  Liberal  Union- 
ist meeting  at  Nottingham  —  Pelham  Papers. 

The  year  1886  was  memorable  for  Mr.  Gladstone's 
introduction  of  the  first  Home  Rule  Bill  and  the  con- 
sequent split  in  the  Liberal  party.  In  private  life  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  for  a  long  time  past  expressed  leanings 
towards  Home  Rule,  and  though  his  public  condemna- 
tion of  the  Parnellite  leaders  did  not  lead  one  to  expect 
that  he  would  adopt  it  as  a  practical  policy,  his  sur- 
render to  the  Land  League  caused  less  surprise  than 
the  sudden  defection  of  two  other  statesmen. 

Early  in  the  year,  before  the  situation  had  shaped 
itself,  Lecky  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth: 

Athenceum   Club:   January   3,    1886.  — '  I   got   your 

letter  yesterday  on  my  return  from ,  where  we 

had  been  since  Monday.     I  talked  a  good  deal  with 

on  the  Home  Rule  question,  and  perhaps  the 

best  way  in  which  I  can  answer  your  question  is  by 
telling  you  what  he  said  —  he  is  himself  very  strongly 

212 


THE    HOME    RULE   QUESTION  213 

against  it.  He  says  all  his  colleagues,  he  believes, 
except  Gladstone  are,  and  he  does  not  the  least  be- 
lieve it  will  be  carried,  but  he  hears  that  G.  is  much 
in  earnest  about  it,  and  he  thinks  it  ver}^  likely,  if 
persisted  in,  to  break  the  party  to  pieces.  He  thinks 
G.  never  meant  the  matter  to  be  disclosed  at  this 
time,  and  doubts  whether  he  consulted  with  anyone. 
If  a  Home  Rule  measure  were  carried  through  the 
Commons  (wliich  he  tliinks  very  unlikely)  it  would 
certainly  be  thrown  out  in  the  Lords,  and  there  would 
be  a  dissolution  on  that  question.  The  idea  of  a  con- 
fiscation of  Irish  land  he  thinks  quite  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, and  he  even  said  that  he  thought  an  enterprising 
speculator  would  make  a  good  thing  by  investing  now 
in  Irish  land,  as  it  can  hardly  go  lower  than  at  present. 
He  quite  agreed  with  me  about  the  peculiar  obligation 
of  the  Government  to  the  owners  of  Irish  property. 
Tliere  is  (1)  the  general  obligation  of  a  Government 
to  all  property  that  has  grown  up  under  its  protection; 
(2)  the  fact  that  the  unpopularity  of  Irish  landlords 
is  mainly  clue  to  their  attachment  to  England;  (3)  the 
fact  that  fifty-two  millions  have  been  invested  at 
Government  invitation  under  the  Encumbered  Es- 
tates Act  in  the  purchase  of  land  with  a  parliamentary 
title;  and  (4)  that  the  Land  Act  has  recently  judicially 
settled  the  conditions  of  Irish  land.  There  are  alarm- 
ing rumours  of  Lord  Spencer  being  shaken  about 
Home  Rule,  and  it  appears  that  Lord  Carnarvon  has 
been  seeing  much  of  Gavan  Duffy  (who  wrote  a  pam- 
phlet to  prove  that  Tories  could  particularly  well 
grant  Home  Rule)  and  of  — ■  Archbishop  Walsh. 
Liberal  politicians  (truly  or  falsely)  think  it  very 
likely  that  the  Government  will  go  in  strongly  for  a 
denominational  university  in  hopes  of  conciliating 
the  priests.  It  looks  altogether  much  more  as  if 
Lord  Wolseley  would  some  day  have  to  settle  the 
question.  I  am  afraid,  however,  it  will  come  not  to 
open  fighting,  but  to  a  multitude  of  murders,  &c.     I 


214  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

hear  that  Lord  Sahsbury  is  quite  alive  to  the  danger 
of  an  Irish  ParUament,  and  I  was  much  amused  by 
an  extract  which  Froude  read  me  from  a  letter  of 
Jacob  Bright,  who  says:  "  Brother  John  has  been  here, 
but  has  thrown  no  light  on  the  Irish  question  —  all 
his  ideas  seem  overset,  and  the  only  suggestions  he 
could  make  were  that  the  franchise  just  given  in  Ire- 
land should  be  withdrawn  and  the  Irish  members 
excluded  for  ten  years  from  the  Enghsh  Parliament!"' 

To  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt  he  wrote: 

January  16,  1886.  —  '  I  must  thank  you  very  much 
for  again  sending  me  an  article  from  the  Westminster. 
I  had  already  read  it  with  great  interest.  You  know 
that  I  have  a  great  deal  of  sympathy  with  you  about 
the  old  Irish  Parliament,  but  you  know  also  that  we 
do  not  agree  about  the  feasibility  of  Home  Rule.  You 
have  fought  the  battle  of  Repeal  very  long  and  very 
steadily,  but  do  not  forget  what  was  the  fate  of  the 
Girondins.  I  hope  we  may  both  keep  our  heads  and 
something  at  least  of  our  Irish  properties!' 

Lecky  felt  strongly  that  the  position  was  extremely 
serious,  and  that  it  was  important  the  facts  should 
be  clearly  put  before  the  country.  In  a  letter  to 
the  Times  of  January  13  he  reviewed  the  situation. 
The  chief  objection  to  Home  Rule,  he  said,  was 
that  the  party  who  demanded  it  were  'animated  by 
two  leading  ideas  —  a  desire  to  plunder  the  whole  landed 
property  of  the  country,  and  an  inveterate  hatred  of 
the  English  connexion  in  every  form.'  Let  any  Eng- 
lish statesman  who  has  still  illusions  on  the  subject 
'read  for  only  three  months  United  Ireland,  the  most 
accredited  organ  of  the  party,'  and  if  after  that  he 
'proposes  to  hand  over  the  property  and  the  virtual 
government  of  Ireland  to  the  men  whose  ideas  it 
represents,'  he  'must  be  either  a  traitor  or  a  fool.' 


LETTERS   TO   THE    'TIMES'  215 

Lecky  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  'the  new 
franchise  —  unqualified  by  any  provision  for  the  pro- 
tection of  minorities  —  has  so  swamped  the  scattered 
loyalists  that  a  part  which  in  mere  numbers  forms  a 
full  third  of  the  population  commands  less  than  a 
sixth  part  of  its  representation,'  and  he  expressed  the 
conviction  that  'as  long  as  English  statesmen  assume 
as  their  first  principle  that  a  country  where  two-thirds 
of  the  population  are  disloyal  must  be  or  can  be  gov- 
erned by  the  same  institutions  and  on  the  same  plan 
of  democracy  as  a  country  which  is  essentially  loyal, 
so  long,  it  may  be  safely  predicted,  will  Irish  anarchy 
continue.' 

He  showed  that  two  tasks  lay  clearly  before  the 
statesman.  One  was  to  restore  'that  first  and  most 
fundamental  condition  of  liberty,  a  state  of  society  in 
which  men  may  pursue  their  lawful  business  and  fulfil 
their  lawful  contracts  without  danger  or  molestation;' 
the  other  was  '  to  create  a  new  social  type  in  the  place 
of  that  which  has  been  destroyed,  by  buying  out  the 
landlords  at  a  reasonable  rate.' 

The  letter  made  a  considerable  impression,  and 
Lecky  received  a  large  number  of  expressions  of  assent. 
Chief  Justice  Morris  wrote:  'It  puts  the  position  ad- 
mirably. Stephen's^  letters,  though  excellent,  are  too 
academic  —  the  land  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  move- 
ment and  is  the  backbone  of  it.' 

'  I  was  so  very  grateful  to  you  for  your  note,'  Lecky 
answered,  January  17,  1886,  'which  I  value  the  more 
as  I  have  always  maintained  that  your  judgment  of 
Irish  things  is  the  best  I  know.  I  have  been  a  good 
deal  struck  with  the  approval  rather  influential  people 


'  Sir  James  Stephen  had  been  writing  letters  to  the  Times  on 
the  same  subject. 


216  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

have  been  good  enough  to  give  to  my  letter,  and  sus- 
pect that  there  is  nothing  Gladstone's  leading  col- 
leagues dread  more  than  his  accession  to  office.' 

A  distinguished  American  friend  in  London  wrote 
that,  though  he  could  not  with  propriety  express  any 
opinion  upon  questions  of  English  politics,  he  might 
at  least  be  allowed  to  express  the  great  satisfaction 
with  which  he  had  read  Lecky's  lucid  and  incisive 
letter.  '  Your  presentation  of  the  case  is  unanswerable, 
and  does  not  at  all  need  the  additional  force  it  derives 
from  your  acknowledged  mastery  of  the  subject  as 
displayed  in  your  "History  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury." ' 

Lord  Tennyson  sent  a  message  that  he  was  'most 
grateful'  for  the  letter;  and  Lady  Tennyson  added, 
'so  are  we  all,  and  so  ought  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  the  Empire  to  be. ' 

A  full  summary  of  the  letter  appeared  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  with  the  comment  that  it  was  given 
'not  only  because  Mr.  Lecky  was  a  dignified  figure  in 
literature,  but  because  he  seemed  to  speak  for  the 
great  body  of  the  best  English  people.' 

The  letter  was  reprinted  by  the  Times  for  the  Loyal 
and  Patriotic  Union,  in  a  small  book  containing  also 
the  letters  of  Sir  James  Stephen  on  the  Irish  question. 

On  the  eve  of  the  meeting  of  Parliament  Lecky 
wrote  a  forcible  appeal  to  the  Times,  signed  'An  Old 
Whig.' 

'1793-1886.  —  Have  the  majority  of  the  Liberal 
leaders  forgotten  one  painful  but  most  instructive 
episode  in  the  history  of  their  party?  It  is  the  be- 
ginning of  the  great  French  war  of  1793  when  the 
Whig  leaders  committed  the  fatal  error  of  placing 
themselves  on  the  side  of  the  enemies  of  England 
and  by  giving  their  party  an  unnational  and  unpa- 


THE    LAND   QUESTION  217 

triotic  character,  completely  deprived  it  for  nearly 
forty  years  of  the  confidence  of  their  countrymen. 
Can  it  be  possible  that  on  the  morrow  of  a  general 
election,  during  which  the  Home  Rule  question  was 
carefully  kept  out  of  the  sight  of  the  electors,  and 
availing  themselves  of  a  majority  which  was  obtained 
in  consequence  of  this  reticence,  they  are  about  to 
surrender  the  virtual  government  of  Ireland  to  men 
whom  they  have  described  themselves  as  "the  rebel 
party,"  "steeped  to  the  lips  in  treason,"  and  engaged 
"  in  a  policy  of  plunder  "  —  to  men  who,  as  they  are 
perfectly  aware,  are  subsidised  agitators  paid  from 
America  by  the  avowed  and  inveterate  enemies  of 
the  British  Empire  ?  And  if  tliis  is  not  their  intention, 
what  possible  significance  can  be  attached  to  the 
reported  appointment  to  the  Chief  Secretaryship  of 
Ireland  of  a  politician  who  has  uniformly  and  con- 
sistently advocated  this  policy  of  surrender?  That 
Mr.  Gladstone  should  be  engaged  on  such  a  design 
is  perhaps  not  absolutely  incredible.  ...  No  reason- 
able person  who  considers  the  present  condition  of 
Ireland  can  doubt  that  the  Irish  policy  to  which  he 
has  attached  so  much  of  his  reputation  as  a  states- 
man has  proved  the  most  stupendous,  the  most  dis- 
astrous of  failures.  The  fact  that,  after  so  many 
years  mainly  devoted  to  Irish  questions,  not  a  solitary 
Irish  member  was  returned  at  the  last  election  to 
support  him,  emphatically  proved  it.  Many  good 
judges  anticipated  that  he  would  never  acquiesce  in 
such  a  humiliation  and  rebuff,  and  are  not  surprised 
that  an  overture  —  not  the  less  significant  or  success- 
ful because  of  its  ambiguity  —  should  have  come  from 
Hawarden.  But  if ,  if ,  if make  them- 
selves accomplices  of  such  a  design  as  I  have  de- 
scribed, what  faith  can  any  longer  be  placed  in  English 
statesmen  ?  It  is  surely  time  for  these  eminent  men 
by  a  few  plain  words  to  clear  the  situation,  to  tell 
their   fellow-countrymen  whether  or   not   they   have 


218  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

abandoned  the  opinions  they  have  so  often  and  so 
emphatically  expressed  —  whether  they  are  about  to 
surrender  to  the  National  League,  and,  by  acquiesc- 
ing in  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,  to  prepare  the 
way  for  the  inevitable  dismemberment  of  the  Empire. 
This  much  at  least  is  certain  —  that  the  next  few  days 
are  likely,  more  than  any  period  within  the  recollec- 
tion of  our  generation,  to  determine  irrevocably  the 
character  and  the  reputation  of  English  public  men.' 

It  was  anticipated  that  the  land  question  would  be 
settled  first  by  a  large  measure  of  compulsory  purchase, 
and  if  it  had  been  really  on  fair  terms  landlords  at  that 
time  would  not  have  objected.  It  is  true  that  agri- 
cultural prices  were  very  low,  but  the  value  of  Irish 
land  had  not  yet  been  depreciated  by  the  wholesale 
reductions  of  the  Land  Courts.  Many  good  judges 
thought  that  such  a  measure  might  make  the  farmers, 
if  not  actively  loyal,  at  least  indifferent  to  Home  Rule. 

'I  doubt  very  much,'  wrote  Lecky  to  Mr.  Booth, 
'whether  Gladstone's  ow^n  colleagues  know  what 
course  he  means  to  follow.  Sir  Erskine  May,  who  is 
one  of  the  best-informed  politicians,  says  there  will 
be  no  Home  Rule,  that  if  Gladstone  wished  it  the  party 
would  not  follow.' 

Feeling  ran  high  at  that  time,  not  only  in  the  politi- 
cal atmosphere,  but  even,  as  rarely  happens,  in  society. 
Old  friendships  passed  through  a  severe  ordeal. 

*No  one  who  does  not  know  the  full  strength  of 
party  allegiance  in  England,'  Lecky  wrote  many  years 
after,  'can  realise  the  force  of  the  shock  which  de- 
tached from  the  Liberal  party  such  a  man  as  the  present 
Duke  of  Devonshire,  who  had  been  the  most  devoted 
and  most  loyal  adherent  to  Mr.  Gladstone;  such  men 
as  the  Duke  of  Argyll  and  Lord  Selborne,  who  had 
during  their  whole  lives  been  his  closest  friends;  such 


SPEECH    IN    KENSINGTON   TOWN    HALL  219 

men  as  Mr.  Bright  and  Mr.  Chamberlain,  the  univer- 
sally recognised  leaders  of  advanced  Radicalism.' 

Those  Liberals  who  remained  staunch  to  the  Union, 
and  who  were  henceforth  called  Liberal  Unionists, 
felt  their  party  had  been  betrayed.  Lecky's  active 
support  was  now  constantly  asked  for  and  given  to 
the  cause.  In  anticipation  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill, 
which  was  introduced  on  April  8,  a  meeting  was  organ- 
ised by  the  Irish  Loyal  and  Patriotic  Union  at  the 
Kensington  Town  Hall  on  St.  Patrick's  Day.  Lecky 
was  persuaded  to  take  part  in  it,  and  spoke  with  all 
that  intimate  knowledge  of  Ireland's  past  and  present 
which  gave  weight  to  his  arguments,  and  with 
the  eloquence  that  in  old  Historical  Society  days 
electrified  his  hearers.  The  speech  was  warmly  ap- 
plauded. 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  Athenceum  Club:  March  1886.  — 
'Edward  O'Brien*  inveigled  me  into  a  speech  which 
was  especially  a  Kensington  affair.  It  went  off,  I 
think,  very  well,  but  "  le  jeu  ne  vaut  pas  la  chandelle," 
for  I  am  now  so  nervous  beforehand  that  it  takes  a 
great  deal  out  of  me,  though  (preparing  very  care- 
fully) when  I  get  up,  it  goes  on  about  as  smoothly  as 
it  used  to.  It  was  a  little  specially  alarming,  as  the 
police  got  notice  that  200  Parnellites  were  to  be  sent 
down  to  break  up  the  meeting.  However,  precau- 
tions were  taken,  and  it  ended  in  thirty  or  forty  dis- 
sentients. I  was  glad  to  find  that  I  could  speak  under 
such  circumstances  and  that  my  good  countrymen 
(who  are  exceedingly  fond  of  a  little  fiery  rhetoric) 
were  soon  very  quiet.  I  don't  mean  to  do  such  a 
thing  again  for  a  long  time.' 


>  Son  of  Smith  O'Brien,  who  was  connected  with  the  Young 
Ireland  movement. 


220  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

The  speech  was  amphfied  into  an  article  '  A  Nation- 
alist Parliament,'  which  he  wrote  for  the  Nineteenth 
Century  of  April,  showing  all  the  dangers  of  such  an 
assembly  and  recalling  the  fact  that  the  greatest  states- 
men of  every  party  had  been  opposed  to  O'Connell's 
Repeal  movement,  a  movement  *  much  less  dangerous 
than  the  present  one.'  The  article  was  much  quoted 
in  the  papers,  and  Lecky  was  surprised  and  pleased  by 
the  very  large  number  of  testimonies  of  adhesion  he 
received  from  all  sides. 

'I  have  just  read  your  powerful  article,'  wrote 
Chief  Justice  Morris.  'It,  to  my  mind,  contains  in 
the  best  form  all  that  can  be  said  on  the  principle  of, 
or  rather  the  want  of  principle  of,  the  contemplated 
measure.  ...  I  think  the  resistance  to  the  scheme  is 
swelling  hourly,  and  your  trenchant  treatment  will 
have  its  weight  in  the  discomfiture  of  this  most  profli- 
gate attempt.' 

Although  Lecky  was  not  in  favour  of  making  what 
he  called  'amateur  excursions'  into  politics,  he  found 
it  very  difficult  to  keep  out  of  them,  for  he  was  now 
constantly  pressed  to  write  articles  or  make  speeches 
or  go  on  deputations  or  join  societies.  His  'Leaders 
of  Public  Opinion  in  Ireland,'  which  had  not  attracted 
much  attention  hitherto,  was  now  frequently  quoted 
by  Ministers  in  support  of  Home  Rule;  'public  men,' 
as  he  expressed  it,  '  had  been  a  good  deal  reading  his 
account  of  the  Protestant  Landlord  Parliament,  in 
hopes  of  getting  an  idea  of  what  a  Catholic-Fenian 
Parliament  would  be  like. '  He  was  taxed  with  incon- 
sistency for  opposing  Home  Rule,  but  it  was  not 
difficult  to  show  that  his  position  was  perfectly  logical, 
and  it  seems  strange  that  men  with  ordinary  common 
sense  should  have  misunderstood  it. 

In  a  letter  of  May  3,  1886,  to  the  Times,  he  refuted 


CORRESPONDENCE   WITH   SIR   W.   HARCOURT      221 

Mr.  Morley/  and  in  a  subsequent  correspondence  with 
Sir  William  Harcourt  he  disposed  in  an  incontrover- 
tible maimer  of  all  the  arguments  used  against  him. 

'The  true  question  at  issue  between  Sir  W.  Har- 
court and  myself,'  he  wrote  in  the  Times  of  June  7, 
1886,  'is  a  very  simple  one.  It  is  whether  there  is 
any  real  resemblance  between  the  Irish  Parliament 
of  the  last  century  and  that  which  it  is  now  proposed 
to  estabhsh.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Parliament  of 
1782  was  a  Parliament  of  the  Protestant  gentlemen  of 
the  country.  It  consisted  of  a  House  of  Lords  as  well 
as  a  House  of  Commons.  It  was  composed  of  men 
who  were  indisputably  attached  to  the  connexion, 
and  it  represented  property  more  eminently  and  spe- 
cially than  any  Legislature  which  is  now  existing  in 
the  world.  This  Parliament  with  distinguished  liber- 
ality gave  Catholics  the  vote  in  1793,  but  it  gave  it 
to  them  at  a  time  when,  as  I  have  endeavoured  to  show, 
there  was  scarcely  any  serious  disloyalty  among  them, 
and  when  there  was  no  class  warfare  dividing  the 
landlord  from  the  tenant.  After  1793,  as  well  as  be- 
fore, the  Irish  Parliament  was  a  body  emphatically 
and  exclusively  loyal. 

'  Grattan  desired  two  changes  in  its  constitution. 
One  of  them  was  a  diminution  of  the  corrupt  influence 
exercised  by  the  Crown  in  the  shape  of  excessive 
patronage  and  rotten  boroughs.  The  other  was  the 
admission  into  the  two  Houses  of  that  small  body  of 
Catholic  gentry  who  were  then,  as  they  are  now, 
among  the  most  loyal  and  most  useful  elements  of 
Irish  life.  The  moral  effect  of  this  latter  measure 
would,  he  beheved,  be  very  great,  though  the  change 
in  the  composition  of  the  Parliament  would  be  very 
small.  Both  Grattan  and  Burke  declared  their  firm 
belief  that  it  would  leave  the  Protestant  ascendancy, 


J  Now  Lord  Morley  of  Blackburn. 


222  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

which  was  essentially  the  ascendancy  of  property, 
entirely  unshaken.  The  conditions  of  Irish  society  in 
the  eighteenth  century  were  totally  different  from  what 
they  now  are,  but  in  those  conditions  it  was  the  opin- 
ion of  Grattan  that  such  a  Parliament  as  I  have  de- 
scribed could  safely  govern  Ireland,  and  that  it  would 
be  an  efficient  agent  in  blending  the  opposing  creeds 
into  a  single  nation  and  in  combating  that  Jacobinical, 
levelling  and  revolutionary  spirit  which  grew  up  in 
the  last  years  of  the  century,  and  which  he  regarded 
as  the  greatest  danger  and  calamity  that  could  afflict 
his  country.  There  is,  however,  nothing  in  Grattan's 
speeches  —  there  is  nothing,  I  may  add,  in  anything 
I  have  myself  written  —  which  implies  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  Ireland  could  at  any  time  have  been 
safely  entrusted  to  a  separate  Parliament  which  was 
not  thoroughly  loyal  and  closely  attached  to  the  prop- 
erty of  the  country. 

'The  experiment  which  Grattan  desired  was  not 
tried.  The  Government  of  Pitt  resisted  Parliamentary 
reform,  increased  corrupt  influence,  and  by  recaUing 
Lord  Fitzwilliam,  prevented  the  admission  of  CathoUcs 
into  the  Irish  Parliament.  The  fatal  contagion  of  the 
French  Revolution  spread  to  Ireland,  and  the  Rebel- 
lion of  1798  aroused  passions  which  made  self-govern- 
ment immeasurably  more  difficult.  The  Union  was 
then  carried  corruptly  and  (as  I  believe)  prematurely. 
It  was  unaccompanied  by  the  indispensable  measure 
of  Catholic  emancipation,  and  the  government  of  Ire- 
land thus  passed  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Irish  gentry. 

'Whether  Grattan's  theory  of  government  could 
ever  have  succeeded  is  an  historical  question  of  much 
dispute.  The  great  preponderance  of  opinion,  both 
among  English  statesmen  and  historians,  is  against 
it,  and  supports  the  contention  of  Pitt  that  a  separate 
Irish  Legislature,  even  though  it  was  thoroughly 
loyal  and  closely  connected  with  property,  was  so 
dangerous  to  the  integrity  of  the  Empire  that  it  was 


grattan's  parliament  223 

necessary  at  all  costs  to  abolish  it.  It  is  surely,  how- 
ever, the  very  extravagance  of  controversy  to  pretend 
that  a  writer  who  adopts  the  opposite  view,  who  blames 
the  policy  of  Pitt  and  contends  (with  some  qualifica- 
tion) that  under  the  peculiar  conditions  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  the  policy  of  Grattan  ought  to  have 
been  tried,  is  thereby  committed  to  the  Irish  policy 
of  the  present  Government.  The  Parliament  which  it 
is  now  proposed  to  establish  would  not  be  indisputably 
loyal,  but  indisputably  the  reverse.  ...  It  would  not 
be  a  Parliament  representing  or  protecting  landed 
property.  Its  leaders  would  be  the  men  who  signed 
the  "No  rent"  manifesto  and  invented  the  doctrine 
of  "prairie  value";  and  Ministers  are  so  thoroughly 
aware  of  the  fact,  that  they  propose  an  enormous 
scheme  of  land  purchase  in  the  well-founded  belief 
that  if  they  did  not  do  so  the  Government  they  desire 
to  construct  would  probably  begin  its  operations  by 
a  general  raid  on  the  property  of  the  country.  It 
would  not  be  a  Parliament  representing  industrial 
interests.  There  is  not,  I  believe,  a  single  considerable 
representative  name  in  Irish  industry  among  its  sup- 
porters, and  the  rapid  fall  of  every  great  Irish  invest- 
ment and  the  ruinous  drain  of  capital  from  the  country 
since  the  scheme  has  been  started  show  beyond  all 
dispute  how  it  is  regarded  by  men  of  business.  It 
would  not  be  a  Parliament  of  conciliation.  Every 
week  that  passes  makes  it  more  evident  that  the 
loyal  and  energetic  Protestant  population,  who  have 
created  the  prosperity  of  Ulster,  will  never  submit 
to  be  handed  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  priests 
and  Fenians  and  agitators  to  whom  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  his  colleagues  wish  to  entrust  the  government 
of  Ireland.  It  is  a  scheme  which  at  the  same  time  so 
bristles  with  occasions  for  quarrel  with  England  that 
it  would  be  hardly  possible  to  find  a  man  off  the  Treas- 
ury Bench  who  pretends  that  it  possesses  any  element 
of  finality.     No   important   English   measure   of    the 


224  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

present  generation  has  encountered  such  a  consensus 
of  independent  condemnation,  is  so  utterly  opposed 
to  the  uniform  traditions  of  EngUsh  statesmanship, 
or  threatens  such  grave  dangers  to  tlie  Empire.  It 
is,  I  believe,  perfectly  notorious  that  if  it  had  not  been 
proposed  by  Mr.  Gladstone  there  are  not  fifty  Eng- 
lish members  of  Parliament  who  would  vote  for  it.' 

A  telling  quotation  from  a  speech  of  Grattan  in 
1794  wound  up  the  correspondence  —  a  speech 

'in  which  Grattan  commented  upon  a  scheme  of 
democratic  representation,  which  was  in  his  days  advo- 
cated by  the  United  Irishmen.  Its  object,  he  said, 
was  "to  destroy  the  influence  of  landed  property." 
Its  effect  would  be  to  place  the  government  of  Ireland 
in  the  hands  of  a  Parliament  unconnected  with  its 
property.  In  language  much  more  emphatic  than  I 
should  venture  to  use,  Grattan  proceeded  to  describe 
what  appeared  to  him  the  inevitable  result.  "From 
a  revolution  of  power,"  he  said,  "it  would  speedily 
lead  to  a  revolution  of  property  and  become  a  plan 
of  plunder  as  well  as  a  scene  of  confusion.  ...  Of  such 
a  representation  as  this  plan  would  provide,  the  first 
ordinance  would  be  robbery,  accompanied  with  the 
circumstance  incidental  to  robbery  —  murder."  "As 
long  as  there  is  spirit  or  common  sense  in  the  King- 
dom," he  continued,  "we  will  all  and  for  ever  resist 
it;  but  though  you  may  defy  the  perpetrators  of  the 
design,  you  must  acknowledge  the  mischief  of  the 
attempt. " ' 

'I  have  never  known  Irish  history  before  at  such  a 
premium  —  indeed,  at  any  premium,'  Lecky  wrote  to 
Mr.  Booth;  and  certainly  the  fate  of  his  'Leaders' 
was  a  curious  illustration.  When  the  book  first  came 
out  in  1861  hardly  anyone  read  it;  when  a  revised 
edition  was  published  in  1S71  ('before  Parnellism  had 
given  the  Home  Rule  movement  its  predatory  and 


DEMAND   FOR   'THE    LEADERS'  225 

agrarian  character')  it  was  much  less  successful  than 
anything  else  he  had  written.  Now  there  was  such  a 
demand  for  it  that  the  edition  was  nearly  exhausted. 
Even  the  chapter  which  he  had  suppressed  in  his  re- 
vised edition  of  1871  was  disinterred  and  used  in  the 
Nationalist  press  as  a  kind  of  Home  Rule  manifesto. 
'As  far  as  I  have  seen,'  he  wrote,  'nine-tenths  is  still 
perfectly  true,  and  the  rest,  though  rather  youthfully 
eloquent  and  exaggerated,  may,  I  think,  be  fairly 
justified  by  the  very  different  condition  of  Ireland  in 
1861.' 

Messrs.  Longman  suggested  that  a  new  and  cheap 
edition  at  that  moment  would  have  a  large  circulation, 
but  Lecky  wrote: 

May  2, 1886.  —  '  Dear  Mr.  Longman,  —  I  am  entirely 
against  the  idea  of  a  cheap  edition  of  my  "Leaders." 
The  book  is,  I  believe,  a  true  book,  and  I  am  prepared 
to  defend  it,  but  it  was  published  before  the  National 
League  gave  Irish  National  politics  its  present  char- 
acter of  a  war  of  classes  and  a  war  against  property. 
I  do  not  wish,  therefore,  to  put  the  book  forward  as 
altogether  applicable  to  present  conditions,  and  I  have 
not  time  to  revise  or  add  to  it.' 

He  was  resolved  that  it  should  not  be  reprinted  with- 
out an  introduction  putting  his  views  on  the  situation 
'beyond  all  dispute.' 

The  Home  Rule  Bill  was  thrown  out  on  June  8,  and 
the  number  of  Liberals  who  voted  against  it  was  a  hope- 
ful sign.  A  dissolution  followed,  and  the  country  con- 
firmed the  vote  in  Parliament  by  a  large  Unionist 
majority. 

(To   Mr.    Booth.)     June   10,    1886. —  'As  far  as  I 
can  judge,   Unionists   (of  the  two  sections)   are  san- 
guine of  winning  at  this  election,  but  all  pohtical  pre- 
16 


226  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

diction  is  now  so  uncertain  that  it  is  better  not  to 
prophesy.  Heaven  only  knows  how,  in  the  long  run, 
Ireland  is  to  be  governed.  There  has  been  no  such  seces- 
sion since  that  from  the  Whigs  in  1793  and  1794  about 
the  Revolution,  and  that  secession  produced  a  Tory 
ascendancy  of  thirty-five  years.  I  hope  you  approved 
of  my  controversy  with  Harcourt.  I  could  not  help 
it,  as  he  made  a  speech  taken  in  a  great  measure  out 
of  my  book.  Did  you  notice  in  this  morning's  Times 
that  I  found  an  ally  in  his  own  brother? ' 

Mr.  Booth  having  expressed  a  wish  that  Lecky 
should  be  in  Parliament,  he  replied: 

June  16,  1886.  — '  As  for  Parhament,  which  you 
speak  of,  even  if  any  chance  were  to  open,  I  am  too 
old  to  begin  a  new  career,  and  feel  more  and  more 
that  I  have  not  the  nerves  or  the  assurance  or  the 
robust  fibre  or  the  good  spirits  needed  for  pubhc  hfe. 
'  You  will  be  amused  at  hearing,  after  the  way  I  wrote 
about  Gladstone,  that  I  met  that  personage  last  night 
at  dinner.  He  was,  however,  very  civil,  and  except 
a  few  historical  questions  about  the  Irish  Parliament 
and  Macaulay's  knowledge  of  Irish  history,  he  said 
nothing  to  me  about  Ireland,  and  was  chiefly  holding 
forth  about  the  condition  of  the  Church  in  Norway. 
.  .  .  Gladstone  strikes  me  as  old,  and  his  voice  is  very 
husky.  His  talking  is  always  interesting  from  the  num- 
ber of  facts  and  well-turned  sentences,  but  it  is  exactly 
like  a  speech,  more  so  than  that  of  anyone  else  I  have 
ever  seen,  and  he  very  rarely  says  anything  one  re- 
members.' 

Meanwhile  Lecky  had  been  working  hard  at  his  two 
new  volumes,  and  began  correcting  the  proofs  early  in 
June.  At  the  end  of  July  he  took  a  holiday  and  went 
first  with  his  wife  to  Roy  at,  and  afterwards  to  Glion 
on  the  Rigi  Vaudois.  The  Lake  of  Geneva,  with  its 
lovely  scenery  and  all  its  associations  —  especially  the 


VOLUMES   V.    AND   VI.    OF  THE    '  HISTORY  '         227 

'  Coin  du  Lac '  —  had  a  great  fascination  for  him. 
During  the  beautiful  September  evenings  they  sat 
on  the  terrace  at  Glion  —  the  lake  stretching  before 
them  and  the  Castle  of  Chillon  at  their  feet  —  loth  to 
tear  themselves  away  till  the  lights  had  gone  out  one 
by  one  at  St.  Gingolph  on  the  opposite  shore. 

*  One  world  grows  dark  and  many  worlds  appear.'  • 

The  winter  was  taken  up  with  proof-sheets,  and 
Lecky  found  that  the  volumes  were  larger  than  he 
expected  or  wished.  At  that  time  he  thought  that 
one  more  volume  —  purely  Irish  —  would  complete 
his  task ;  and  then  '  I  shall  probably  bid  a  lasting  fare- 
well to  history.  I  have  hardly  been  reading  anything 
of  late,  except  myself,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  'and 
wish  much  to  get  to  something  more  interesting. '  He 
found,  however,  the  time  to  read  Dr.  Dowden's  '  Life 
of  Shelley,'  which  he  thought  very  well  done,  but  too 
long;  'and  the  deplorable  silliness  and  bonelessness  of 
Shelley's  character  are  very  exasperating,'  he  said,  'to 
anyone  who  admires  his  poetry  as  much  as  I  do.' 

In  April  1S87  the  two  new  volumes  came  out.  They 
brought  the  '  History  of  England '  to  a  conclusion  with 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  in  1793;  they  treated  of  the 
causes  and  effects  of  the  French  Revolution  in  its 
relation  to  England,  the  social  condition  of  England 
at  the  time,  and  finally  the  history  of  Ireland  during 
the  same  period.  The  volumes  were  extremely  well 
received.  His  comprehensive  knowledge,  his  clear 
insight,  his  calm  judgment,  his  asterly  treatment  of 
the  various  subjects  received  full  recognition  from  the 
reviewers ;  and  his  friends  were  warm  in  their  apprecia- 
tion. 


» 'An  Evening  Type,'  Commonplace  Book,  1862. 


228  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

'Though  mourning/  I  know,  is  in  your  house,' 
wrote  Mr.  Kinglake,  '  I  yet  cannot  refrain  any  longer 
from  congratulating  you  on  the  achievement  —  it  is 
nothing  less  —  of  your  last  two  volumes.  They  seem 
to  me  admirable  in  every  chapter  that  I  yet  have  mas- 
tered, and  I  may  say  that  my  reading,  though  not 
yet  complete,  has  extended  to  a  main  part  of  both 
the  volumes.  Although  I  may  have  little  right  to 
speak  as  a  critic,  I  am  strengthened  by  the  rare  con- 
sensus of  opinion  amongst  those  with  whom  I  have 
talked  on  the  subject,  and  there  is  a  warmth  and  hearti- 
ness in  the  praises  bestowed  such  as  one  rarely  hears 
in  these  days.  The  volumes  fulfil  three  essential  con- 
ditions: they  are  well  based  on  authority,  they  are 
immensely  engaging,  and  they  tend  towards  sound 
statesmanship.' 

To  French  readers  the  fifth  volume,  which  treated  of 
the  French  Revolution,  appealed  especially.  The 
French  paper  Le  Temps  recognised  in  it  the  work  of 
'one  of  the  most  eminent,  if  not  the  most  eminent,  of 
Enghsh  living  historians,  whose  calm  and  elevated 
judgments  carried  with  them  an  incontestable  author- 
ity.' The  expectation  that  he  would  study  the  French 
Revolution  in  a  more  impartial  and  large-minded 
spirit  than  most  of  his  countrymen  was  not  disap- 
pointed. 

Mr.  Andrew  White  wrote  from  Cornell  University, 
October  1,  1887,  that  he  would  insist  on  every  student 
who  should  come  up  to  the  examinations  at  the  end 
of  the  term  or  the  next,  reading  the  admirable  chapters 
upon  the  French  Revolution.  'They  seem  to  me 
masterly  in  every  respect.  During  this  long  summer 
vacation  upon  the  Massachusetts  coast  and  in  the 
Adirondacks  I  have  done  a  great  deal  of  reading,  but 


Mrs.  Lecky's  father  had  died. 


REVIEWS   OF   THE    VOLUMES  229 

nothing  has  interested  me  so  much  as  your  last  two 
volumes.  You  have  certainly  rendered  a  great  service 
to  the  whole  English-speaking  race.' 

'I  have  had  a  good  many  reviews,'  Lecky  wrote  to 
Mr.  Booth  in  May,  'and  almost  all  very  favourable; 
more  so,  I  think,  than  on  the  occasion  of  my  last 
volumes.  The  Freeman's  Journal  especially  had  a 
very  amiable  (considering  my  politics)  and  also  very 
able  review,  which  I  should  guess  to  be  written  by 
Gavan  Duffy.  The  book  was  stereotyped  at  the  be- 
ginning, and  2000  copies  were  printed.  I  heard  a 
week  ago  that  only  400  remained,  and  that  the  sale 
was  going  on  very  steadily.  ...  I  think  myself  that 
these  two  volumes  are  the  best  of  the  series,  probably 
the  best  I  shall  ever  do,  for  I  mean  never  to  under- 
take again  a  work  of  great  research.  I  look  forward 
with  much  dread  to  my  last  volume,  which  cannot, 
I  think,  be  a  success.  It  is  a  confused,  tangled  story 
of  horrors  and  of  isolated  insurrections,  without  any 
element  of  dignity  or  beauty.' 

After  the  publication  of  the  volumes,  Lecky  took  a 
holiday  in  Italy  with  his  wife.  They  went  to  Rome, 
stopping  at  Turin,  Spezzia,  Pisa,  Sienna,  and  Orvieto 
on  the  way.  They  saw  the  latest  excavations  in  the 
Forum,  the  House  of  the  Vestals  with  its  remarkable 
statues.  But  their  chief  object  was  Naples.  To  see 
once  more  the  place  which  of  all  others  had  had  such 
a  fascination  for  him  in  his  youth;  to  live  among  the 
memories  of  old  Roman  days;  to  visit  Pompeii  and 
Herculaneum,  and  all  that  enchanting  neighbourhood 
—  Posilipo,  Sorrento,  Amalfi  —  was  a  great  enjoy- 
ment to  him,  and  the  sight  of  Vesuvius  by  day  and  by 
night  a  never-failing  interest. 

In  the  summer,  when  he  was  back  in  London,  he 
had  a  passage-at-arms  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  with 


230  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

Mr.  Gladstone,  who,  in  an  appreciative  review  of 
Lecky's  last  two  volumes,  had  taken  exception  to  an 
incidental  statement  of  his :  '  We  have  ourselves  seen  a 
Minister  go  to  the  country  on  the  promise  that  if  he 
was  returned  to  office  he  would  abolish  the  principal 
direct  tax  paid  by  the  class  which  was  then  predominant 
in  the  constituencies.'  Mr.  Lecky,  he  said,  ought  to 
have  known  and  to  have  stated  that  with  the  proposal 
to  repeal  the  income  tax  came  a  proposal  to  reconstruct 
and  enlarge  the  death  duties.  Lecky  had  no  difficulty 
in  proving  that  Mr.  Gladstone's  memory  had  played 
him  false,  and  that  there  had  been  no  mention  of  the 
death  duties  at  the  time,^  a  fact  which  Mr.  Gladstone 
acknowledged  in  a  subsequent  article,  strengthening, 
however,  Lecky's  argument  by  adding  that  such  a 
disclosure  would  have  been  both  wholly  novel  and  in 
the  highest  degree  mischievous  to  the  public  interest. 
That  year  the  question  of  abolishing  the  Irish  Vice- 
Royalty  was  raised  and  discussed  among  Unionist 
politicians.  As  there  were  many  who  wished  to  know 
Lecky's  views,  he  wrote  a  Memorandum  on  the  subject 
and  had  it  privately  printed.  His  reasons  for  thinking 
it  desirable  to  maintain  the  institution  were,  that  it 
was  one  of  the  few  in  Ireland  to  which  no  one  seriously 
objected;  that  to  abolish  it  would  be  extremely  un- 
popular in  Dublin,  which  would  lose  much  of  its  trade 
and  sink  into  the  position  of  a  provincial  town;  that 
it  seemed  to  him  vitally  important  that  the  men  who 
directed  the  government  of  Ireland  should  be  in  close 


>  It  has  since  been  shown  Lecky's    contention.     In    De- 

that  Mr.  Gladstone  had  some  mocracy    and    Liberty    he    has 

such   financial   scheme  in   his  gone  very  fully  into  the  whole 

mind    before   the   dissolution;  question  (vol.  i.  cabinet  edition, 

but     that     does     not     affect  pp.  159  sqq.). 


THE  JUBILEE   OF    1887  231 

touch  with  Irish  character,  feelings  and  opinions,  and 
that  for  this  purpose  a  Lord  Lieutenant  hving  in  Ire- 
land was  most  valuable.  He  was  a  centre  of  society 
and  presided  over  all  important  movements  for  the 
benefit  of  the  country  where  otherwise  party  politics 
and  sectarianism  would  take  the  lead.  The  proposi- 
tion that  the  Vice-Royalty  kept  up  the  idea  of  a. sepa- 
rate nationality  seemed  to  him  altogether  untenable,  as 
it  would  be  impossible  by  any  institutions,  or  any 
abolition  of  institutions,  to  make  the  two  countries 
alike. 

Two  years  later  —  in  1889^  —  when  Lord  London- 
derry resigned,  a  deputation  of  Irish  Unionist  peers 
and  commoners  went  to  the  Prime  Minister  to  urge 
the  abolition,  chiefly  on  the  ground  that  the  Vice- 
Royalty  encouraged  the  idea  that  the  complete  union 
of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  had  not  taken  place. 
liOrd  Salisbury  answered  that  Lord  Zetland  had 
already  been  appointed  and  the  question  remained 
in  abeyance. 

The  great  event  of  the  year  1887  was  the  Jubilee. 
Lecky  was  invited  to  the  Abbey,  and  was-  much  im- 
pressed with  the  beauty  of  the  ceremony,  the  music,  the 
costumes,  the  striking  effect  of  the  sun  rays  lighting  up 
the  scene,  and  the  touching  incident  at  the  end  when 
all  the  Queen's  children  went  up  to  her  to  pay  their 
homage.  The  Procession  was  no  less  striking  in  its 
way  —  the  cortege  of  princes  on  horseback  escorting 
the  royal  carriage,  and  among  them  the  fine  and  pa- 
thetic figure,  in  a  white  uniform,  of  the  Crown  Prince 
of  Germany,^  already  doomed  by  a  mortal  disease  to 
an  early  death. 

In  the  course  of  the  summer  Lecky  went  for  a  little 


May  29.  ^Afterwards  the  Emperor  Frederick. 


232  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

journey  to  the  Harz  Mountains  before  joining  his  wife 
at  Vosbergen.  On  the  way  he  stayed  at  Cassel,  and 
was  dehghted  with  the  picture  gallery,  where  he  had 
two  Rembrandts  copied,  the  'Saslda'  and  'Coppenol.' 
On  his  arrival  in  Holland  he  wrote  to  his  stepmother: 

Vosbergen:  August  18,  1887.  — '  I  got  here  all  right 
on  Tuesday,  after  a  very  pleasant  little  journey.  I 
went  from  Cassel  to  Harzburg,  a  pretty  place  in  the 
Harz,  wooded  scenery  much  like  the  Jura  but  not 
quite  so  high  or  grand,  but  very  graceful  —  one  valley 
exceedingly  like  the  Glen  of  the  Downs.^  I  meant 
to  have  gone  on  through  the  mountains,  but  the 
weather  broke,  and  I  thought  it  better  to  keep  to  the 
towns.  I  went  to  Brunswick,  a  charming  old  town 
a  good  deal  of  the  Nuremberg  type,  with  a  very  fine 
gallery  of  Dutch  pictures  (though  not  as  fine  as  Cassel), 
a  beautiful  theatre,  and  some  curious  churches. 
Thence  to  Hanover,  where  Herrenhausen,  the  Palace 
of  the  Electress  Sophia  and  the  early  Georges,  had 
naturally  a  great  interest  to  an  eighteenth-century 
person  like  myself.  There  are  beautiful  and  quaint 
old  gardens  laid  out  by  Le  Notre  attached  to  Herren- 
hausen —  the  spot  where  the  Electress  Sophia  died 
walking  in  the  garden,  about  six  weeks  before  the 
death  of  Queen  Anne  would  have  given  her  the  Eng- 
hsh  throne,  is  marked  by  her  statue;  and  there  is  a 
museum  with  many  curious  Anglo-Hanoverian  por- 
traits. The  regular  Hanover  picture  gallery  is  very 
inferior  to  the  others  I  saw.  What  interested  me  most 
was  a  portrait  by  Lawrence  of  Pitt  shortly  before 
his  death,  his  hair  (though  he  was  only  about  forty) 
already  quite  white.  I  went  from  Hanover  to  Osna- 
briick,  and  thence  here,  where  I  found  all  well  and  the 
country  looking  very  pretty.  ...  I  was  looking  yes- 
terday on  the  heath  for  the  small  blue  gentians  to 
send  you,  but  none  seem  to  have  appeared  yet.' 

1  In  the  County  Wicklow. 


UNIONIST  MEETING   AT   NOTTINGHAM  233 

In  the  autumn  he  was  again  at  Paris  reading  in  the 
Archives.  He  was  always  struck  with  the  great 
courtesy  of  the  officials,  but  also  with  the  want  of 
order  in  the  records.  'They  seem  to  think  it  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  that  a  volume  is  simply 
introuvabU'  he  wrote.  He  read  besides  in  the  great 
library  of  the  Rue  Richelieu,  and  made  out  various 
knotty  questions.  He  had  some  correspondence  at 
the  time  with  Canon  Miles,  'who  seems  to  be  a  very 
interesting  person.  He  was  a  friend  of  Hannah  More, 
and  was  on  a  visit  to  Lafayette's  family  in  1816!' 
Canon  Miles  was  the  son  of  the  Miles  who  arranged  an 
interview  between  Pitt  and  Maret  in  1792.^ 

Soon  after  his  return  to  England  he  found  himself 
drawn  once  more  into  the  anti-Home  Rule  campaign. 
A  great  Liberal  Unionist  demonstration  was  organised 
at  Nottingham,  where  Mr.  Gladstone  had  lately  made 
a  Home  Rule  speech  at  a  meeting  of  the  National 
Liberal  Federation.  Lord  Hartington  was  to  be  the 
chief  speaker,  and  Lecky  was  asked  to  take  part  in 
it  with  Mr.  Finlay,^  Mr.  Arnold-Forster,  Mr.  T.  W. 
Russell  —  at  that  time  a  keen  Unionist  ^-  and  other 
members  of  the  party.  He  stayed  with  the  Duke 
and  Duchess  of  St.  Albans  at  Bestwood,  where  there 
was  a  large  political  party  assembled  for  the  occasion. 
Two  days  before  the  meeting  the  Duke  and  Duchess 
entertained  in  the  evening  all  the  Nottinghamshire 
Liberal  Unionists.  Lord  Hartington  had  to  get  on 
a  chair  and  make  them  a  short  speech.  The  meeting, 
where  some  2500  persons  were  expected  to  attend, 
took  place  the  following  Monday,  October  24.  The 
Duke  of  St.   Albans  presided,  and  Lord  Hartington 


>  History  of  England,  cabinet  ^  Now  Sir  Robert  Finlay. 

edition,  vol.  vii.  p.  121,  note. 


234  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

in  an  important  speech  replied  to  Mr.  Gladstone's 
arguments  of  the  week  before. 

Owing  to  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Finlay,  Lecky  was 
asked  to  speak  immediately  after  Lord  Hartington. 
He  always  was  the  despair  of  the  reporters,  who  found 
it  often  impossible  to  do  justice  to  him  on  account 
of  his  rapid  delivery.  He  was  conscious  of  it,  and  as 
he  objected  to  'being  made  to  talk  nonsense  in  bad 
grammar,'  he  generally  wrote  down  what  he  intended 
to  say,  and  gave  it  to  any  reporter  on  the  spot  who 
asked  him.  He  wrote  afterwards^  that  everything 
went  off  all  right.  'A  very  crowded,  hot,  but  amiable 
meeting  and  good  speaking.  I  got  through  my  little 
performance  tolerably  well,  and  you  will  see  it  in  the 
Times,  which  mercifully  has  not,  like  the  other  papers, 
transformed  me  into  a  "Professor."'  In  spite  of  all 
disclaimers,  some  reporters  persistently  called  him 
'Professor,'  which  he  much  disliked,  as  he  not  only 
had  no  claim  to  that  dignity,  but  considered  it  was 
connected  with  a  sphere  of  work  for  which  he  had  no 
taste  or  aptitude.  'Reporters,'  he  once  wrote  to  Mr. 
Booth,  'seem  to  have  got  it  into  their  heads  that 
anyone  who  writes  history  must  be  a  professor.'  While 
at  Bestwood,  he  went  with  Mr.  A.  Grey^  and  Mr.  Finlay 
to  Newstead  Abbey,  Byron's  old  home,  lunching  and 
spending  the  afternoon.  'It  is  a  most  curious  place,' 
he  wrote  to  his  wife,  'full  of  beautiful  pictures  and 
v/ith  a  multitude  of  Byron's  papers  and  other  things.' 

During  his  absence  from  London  he  received  a  com- 
munication from  the  head  of  the  MSS.  Department  in 
the  British  Museum  that  the  authorities  had  just 
bought  some  papers,  including  the  correspondence 
of  T.  Pelham  (Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland  under  Lord 


'  To  his  wife  at  Amsterdam.  ^  Nqw  Lord  Grey. 


LITERARY    PROJECTS  235 

Temple  and  Lord  Camden) ;  and  as  this  related  to  the 
very  period  he  was  writing  about,  he  thought  it  might 
be  most  valuable  and  important,  and  that  he  must  go 
through  it  carefully.  On  his  return  he  began  by 
working  for  a  few  weeks  very  hard  at  these  papers 
in  the  British  Museum. 

*  I  try  to  get  to  the  British  Museum  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible after  10,'  he  wrote.^  '  I  find  those  long  mornings 
out  tire  me  a  good  deal,  and  I  am  not  able  to  work 
in  the  evenings ;  there  are  always  also  a  variety  of  letters, 
&c.,  to  be  looked  after  —  e.g.  yesterday  I  was  out 
from  a  little  after  9.30,  got  back  very  tired  about  5, 
and  found  a  letter  from  the  editor  of  the  Liberal 
Unionist  asking,  if  possible  by  return  of  post,  for  a  full 
and  corrected  version  of  my  speech,  as  he  wanted  to 
print  extracts  in  the  next  Liberal  Unionist,  and  thought 
of  printing  the  whole  separately.  Fortunately  I  had 
a  copy  of  a  Nottingham  paper  which  gave  it  (with 
small  misprints)  from  my  MS.,  and  I  was  able  in  an 
hour  or  so,  by  corrections  and  amplifications,  to  make 
it  tolerably  right.' 

He  received  urgent  requests  to  make  speeches,  'but  by 
desperate  efforts  I  contrive  to  keep  pretty"  well  in  my 
corner.'  In  the  midst  of  his  work  he  was,  however, 
always  ready  to  give  his  time  if  he  could  help  anyone  — 
whether  it  was  to  read  and  judge  a  number  of  essays 
for  a  friend  who  wished  to  give  a  school  prize,  or  to 
read  over  the  proof-sheets  of  a  book  at  the  request  of 
another  friend. 

He  was  also  putting  his  American  correspondent, 
Mr,  Lea,  in  the  way  of  getting  copies  made  of  Inquisi- 
tion papers  in  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  for  the  valuable 
work  on  the  subject  which  Mr.  Lea  was  writing,  and 
this  led  to  a  good  deal  of  correspondence. 

'  To  his  wife. 


236  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

'  I  am  sorry/  he  wrote  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Mr. 
Lea,  January  25,  1888,  'you  have  lost  your  interest 
in  modern  history,  and  I  do  not  think  it  at  all  hkely 
that  I  shall  go  back  to  the  early  days  of  my  former 
book.  I  have  a  disagreeable  and  somewhat  difficult 
task  before  me  in  unravelling  the  Irish  history  of  the 
last  years  of  the  century,  and  if  I  accompHsh  this,  I 
think  I  shall  have  paid  my  tribute  to  History.  Next 
March  I  shall  have  reached  the  mature  age  of  fifty,  and 
I  should  Uke  to  write  some  of  my  thoughts  on  other 
subjects  before  the  end.  I  have  for  a  great  many  years 
kept  a  commonplace  book  for  stray  and  miscellaneous 
thoughts,  and  I  find  that  it  foreshadows,  as  it  will,  I 
hope,  largely  assist,  my  future  work.' 


CHAPTER  IX 

1888-1890. 

Unionist  Textbook  —  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  —  Speeches  at  the 
Literary  Fund  dinner  and  at  the  Academy  —  Portrait  by 
Mr.  Wells  for  Grillion's  Club  —  D.C.L.  degree,  Oxford  — 
Donegal  —  Wexford  —  Monasterboice  —  Democracy  —  Par- 
nell  Commission  —  Anti-Home  Rule  meeting,  Birmingham 
—  Mr.  Bryce's  '  Plistory '  —  Harz  Mountains  —  Completion 
of  the  '  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century '  — 
Bust  by  Boehm  —  His  death  —  Formative  influences  — 
Miss  Lawless'  '  Essex  in  Ireland '  —  Cardinal  Manning  —  On 
Catholicism  —  Death  of  Newman  —  Summer  hohdays  — 
Grande  Chartreuse  —  Publication  of  the  last  two  volumes 
of  the  '  History '  —  Reviews  and  letters. 

During  the  winter  new  editions  were  required  of  all 
his  books  (except  the  '  Leaders,'  which  he  did  not  wish 
to  reprint) ,  and  he  had  —  besides  his  ordinary  work  — 
to  do  a  certain  amount  of  revision,  as  he  was  always 
anxious  to  make  them  as  accurate  as  possible.  He 
also  recast  and  expanded  his  article  on  the  Home  Rule 
question  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  for  a  Unionist 
textbook.  The  Liberals  had  been  to  the  fore  with  a 
Home  Rule  handbook  in  which  there  were  a  number  of 
quotations  from  his  '  Leaders '  used  in  support  of 
Home  Rule.  The  Unionist  publication,  'The  Truth 
about  Home  Rule,'  was  a  rejoinder.  It  was  edited 
by  Sir  George  Baden-Powell  and  contained  articles 
by  various  well-known  public  men. 

237 


238  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

'I  am  deep  in  the  Irish  history  of  the  last  years  of 
the  century/  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Lea,  February  1888,  '  a 
subject  which  I  find  has  a  most  alarming  actualite. 
When  I  began  my  "  History  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  " 
most  of  my  critics  complained  especially  of  the  length 
of  my  Irish  History,  and  I  suspect  most  of  my  readers 
skipped  it.  Now  nothing  I  write  is  half  so  much 
talked  of  and  discussed  as  the  Irish  part.  .  .  .  You 
have  a  singularly  charming  and  able  Minister^  here 

—  a  great  friend  of  mine  —  who  impresses  greatly 
everyone  he  comes  in  contact  with.  I  was  present 
with  him  only  yesterday  at  an  interesting  ceremony 

—  at  which  M.  Arnold  read  a  paper  —  of  the  unveil- 
ing in  Westminster  church  of  a  very  beautiful  window, 
erected  by  Mr.  Child  —  I  think,  of  your  city  —  to  the 
memory  of  Milton.' 

Not  long  after  the  ceremony  of  which  Lecky  speaks 
in  this  letter,  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  died.  Having  to 
answer  for  Literature  at  the  Royal  Literary  Fund 
dinner  early  in  May,  Lecky  paid  a  warm  tribute  to 
his  memory  and  to  that  of  Sir  Henry  Maine,  who  had 
also  died  within  the  previous  months.  Two  days  later 
he  had  to  respond  for  Literature  at  the  Royal  Academy 
dinner,  and  he  once  more  alluded  to  'that  true  poet 
and  great  critic'  who  had  discharged  the  year  before 
the  task  which  now  devolved  on  himself  .2  Commenting 
on  the  tendencies  of  modern  literature,  he  recognised 

1  Mr.  Phelps  had  succeeded  ever  known.     He  was  one  of 

Mr.  Lowell  as  U.S.  Minister  in  the  few  people  who  could  talk 

London,  and  was  no  less  pop-  with   the   simplest   and   most 

ular  than  his  predecessor.  unaffected  egotism  about  him- 

2 'Matthew      Arnold,'       he  self  and  his  writings  without 

wrote  many  years  after  to  Mr.  offending    or    boring    anyone, 

Booth,  'was  a  great  friend  of  and  his  power  of  drawing  out 

mine    and    one    of    the    most  what  was  good  from  all  about 

attractive  personalities  I  have  him  was  quite  extraordinary.' 


D.C.L.    DEGREE,    OXFORD  239 

that  there  wore  those  who  still  kept  up  the  old  tradi- 
tions; and  he  spoke  with  much  admiration  of  Mr. 
Kinglake,  'that  great  master  of  picturesque  English,' 
who  had  lately  published  the  last  volume  of  his  '  Cri- 
mean War,'  and  of  a  new  poem  which  had  struck  him, 
Mr.  Robert  Buchanan's  '  City  of  Dream.' 

He  gave  at  that  time  sittings  to  Mr.  Wells,  R.A., 
for  a  crayon  portrait  intended  to  be  engraved  for 
Grillion's  Club,  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  that 
society,  of  which  Lecky  had  been  elected  a  member 
the  year  before.  The  drawing  was  done  with  all  Mr. 
Wells'  artistic  skill  and  was  a  very  good  likeness;^  and 
the  sittings  led  to  very  friendly  relations  with  the  artist. 

Meanwhile  he  was  working  hard  at  his  Irish  History ; 
he  found,  as  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  (June  30,  1SS8), 
'the  enormous  mass  of  MS.  material,  which  no  one  has 
yet  used,  very  overwhelming.  I  think,  even  at  the 
expense  of  being  dull,  and  destroying  very  much 
the  symmetry  of  my  book,  I  must  do  this  period 
thoroughly;  and  as  the  whole  book  will  probably 
require  quite  120  pages  of  index,  I  am  beginning  to 
see,  to  my  alarm,  that  it  is  likely  to  amount  to  two 
volumes,  not,  however,  volumes  like  the  last,  but 
from  350  to  400  pages  each.' 

In  the  summer  the  honorary  degree  of  D.C.L.  was 
conferred  upon  him  at  Oxford.  He  and  his  wife 
stayed  under  the  hospitable  roof  of  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Moore  at  St.  Edmund's  Hall,  and  were  much  interested 
in  the  proceedings  of  the  Encaenia.  Those  who  re- 
ceived the  degree  at  the  same  time  were  M.  Bonghi, 
member  of  the  Italian  Parliament,  Lord  Lansdowne, 
Lord  Brassey,  Sir  James  Hannen,  Dr.  Martineau,  and 
Dr.  Joseph  Prestwich. 


1  It  is  now  in  the  Library  at  Windsor  Castle. 


240  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

'  You  saw,  I  dare  say,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  July 
4,  1888,  'that  the  University  of  Oxford  was  good 
enough,  a  few  weeks  ago,  to  make  me  D.C.L.  It  is 
a  curious  sign  of  how  things  have  changed  there,  that 
one  of  my  colleagues  was  Dr.  Martineau,  the  leading 
Unitarian,  and  another  Sir  J.  Hannen,  the  President 
of  the  Divorce  Court.  The  first  told  me  that,  as  a 
young  man,  one  of  the  great  trials  of  his  life  was  that 
he  could  not  go  to  the  University  on  account  of  the 
Articles;  the  second  told  me  that  when  he  was  at 
Oxford  before,  he  had  been  taken  to  church  and  heard 
a  long  sermon  from  Dr.  Liddon  on  the  wickedness 
of  the  Divorce  Court.  Even  I  might  hardly  have  been 
selected  during  the  Pusey  reign.' 

Later  in  the  summer  he  went  to  Ireland,  beginning 
with  a  short  tour  to  Donegal  by  himself.  His  letters 
from  there  always  seemed  to  breathe  a  current  of  the 
Atlantic  air,  which  he  thought  the  most  invigorating 
in  the  world.  He  knew  'nothing  like  it  to  throw  off 
quickly  the  lassitude  of  a  London  season.'  '  Being 
the  whole  day  out  in  most  admirable  air,'  he  wrote  to 
his  wife  from  Carrick,  '  is,  I  am  sure,  the  best  of  medi- 
cines.' He  was  much  struck  with  the  apparent  great 
prosperity  in  the  part  of  Donegal  he  had  come  through 
(from  Ballyshannon)  —  no  beggars,  the  people  ex- 
cellently dressed,  the  houses  beautifully  whitewashed, 
often  with  roses  creeping  over  them  and  magnificent 
fuchsias  before  the  door.  'There  is  a  fine  old  ruined 
castle  of  the  O  'Donnells  at  Donegal  (where  I  stopped 
an  hour)  and  an  old  abbey,  where  the  Four  Masters 
—  the  oldest  well-known  historians  of  Ireland  —  wrote. 
The  latest  of  their  successors  paid  his  homage  to  the 
site.'  He  walked  to  a  point  about  one  and  a  half 
hours  from  Carrick,  where  there  was  the  finest  cliff 
view  he  had  ever  seen.  'A  semicircle  of  cliffs  over 
the  Atlantic,  the  highest,  I  believe,  over  2000  feet 


DONEGAL  241 

high,  with  cataracts  swollen  from  the  rain  dashing 
down  their  sides,  and  numerous  sea  birds  wheeling 
round  and  screaming  and  clustering  in  multitudes 
upon  the  most  lovely  of  little  mountain  lakes.  Unfor- 
tunately, on  neither  of  my  expeditions  have  I  been 
able  to  see  the  summits  of  the  cliffs,  which  were  wrapped 
in  clouds,  but  the  effect,  notwithstanding,  was  ex- 
tremely grand.' 

He  went  on  to  Portrush,  where  he  had  not  been  for 
some  thirty  years,  and  with  which  he  was  greatly 
pleased.  It  struck  him  as  very  like  both  Sche- 
veningen  and  Biarritz,  having,  like  the  former,  'a 
magnificent  stretch  of  two  miles  of  the  smoothest 
sand,'  and,  like  the  latter,  'beautiful  views  of  cliffs 
chiselled  by  the  waves ' ;  but  he  thought  it  had  a  great 
many  more  interesting  things  near  it  than  either 
Scheveningen  or  Biarritz. 

He  paid  a  visit  to  his  old  college  at  Armagh  —  his 
first  boarding-school  —  which  evoked  many  memories; 
and  he  went  to  Rostrevor,  where  he  had  not  been  since 
his  college  days,  and  which  struck  him  again  as  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  sea  places  in  Ireland,  'woods  going 
down  the  hills  right  into  the  sea.'  He  afterwards 
went  with  his  wife  (who  had  joined  him)  to  stay  at 
his  old  home,  Bushy  Park,  in  the  County  Wicklow, 
where  their  friend  Miss  Crampton  was  now  living. 

' .  .  ,  I  am  at  present  paying  a  short  country  visit 
in  the  County  Wicklow,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Albert  Can- 
ning, whom  he  had  missed  seeing  at  Rostrevor,  'and 
afterwards  going  for  a  few  days  to  the  County  Wex- 
ford to  look  at  the  scene  of  the  '98  rebellion,  and  hope 
then  to  be  for  a  few  weeks  at  Kingstown,  from  where 
I  mean  to  go  through  some  work  in  Dublin  relating 
to  my  book.  The  last  seven  years  of  the  century  in 
Ireland,  however,  form  a  large  subject,  and  a  full  year 
17 


242  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

must  pass  before  I  can  have  accomplished  it.  I  am 
glad  to  hear  of  your  Tablet  review.  The  reviews  in 
that  paper  always  strike  me  as  good,  and  it  is  one  of 
the  two  religious  papers  (the  Guardian  being  the  other) 
which  are  conducted  with  real  abihty  and  command 
the  respect  of  intelhgent  and  non-theological  laymen. 
'The  subject  of  your  proposed  book^  is  a  large  and 
very  interesting  one,  and  I  hope  you  will  carry  out 
your  scheme.  You  will  find  in  Buckle's  "History  of 
Civilisation"  a  good  deal  that  is  valuable  relating  to 
it.' 

Lecky  went  to  Wexford  as  he  wished  to  make  out 
the  sites  of  the  Wexford  rebellion  before  writing  about 
it.  The  interest  was  a  purely  historic  one,  for  Ennis- 
corthy,  which  he  made  his  headquarters,  does  not 
offer  great  attractions.  He  identified  Vinegar  Hill 
—  the  scene  of  many  horrible  massacres  —  and  the 
site  of  Scullabogue  Barn,  where  a  number  of  prisoners 
made  by  the  rebels  were  burnt  alive.  He  went  to 
New  Ross,  Three  Rocks  —  in  fact,  to  all  the  places  as- 
sociated with  the  terrible  events  of  those  days;  and  it 
will  be  seen  from  his  account  of  the  rebellion  that  he 
had  made  himself  familiar  with  the  ground.  The 
subject  was  a  peculiarly  difficult  one  to  write  about 
on  account  of  all  the  conflicting  evidence,  and  Lecky, 
as  usual,  sifted  it  with  the  utmost  care. 

During  that  summer  he  and  his  wife  paid  a  pleasant 
visit  to  their  old  friend  Mrs.  Dunlop  at  Monasterboice 
House,  Drogheda,  not  far  from  the  scene  of  the  battle 
of  the  Boyne,  which  is  as  picturesque  as  it  is  interest- 
ing. An  obelisk  marks  the  place  where  William  crossed 
the  river  and  where  the  Duke  of  Schomberg  was  killed. 


1  Literary  Influence  in  British  History,  by  the  Hon.  A.  S.  G. 
Canning. 


DEMOCRACY  243 

His  hostess  was  the  granddaughter  of  John  Foster,  the 
last  Speaker  of  the  Irish  House  of  Commons,  and  this 
link  with  a  period  which  so  much  occupied  his  thoughts 
was  of  great  interest  to  him.  The  Plan  of  Campaign 
had  been  rife  in  those  parts,  especially  on  the  neigh- 
bouring property  of  Mrs.  Dunlop's  nephew,  Lord 
Massereene ;  and  one  evening  during  Mr.  and  Mrs, 
Lecky's  stay  he  and  his  wife  came  to  dinner  under  the 
protection  of  two  constables,  who  remained  in  the 
house  and  followed  them  again  on  their  way  home  at 
night.  Such  incidents  —  apart  from  their  deplorable 
causes  —  gave  a  zest  to  Irish  country  life. 

It  happened  more  than  once  when  visiting  country 
houses  that  Lecky  came  across  some  historical  reminis- 
cence or  other  connected  with  the  times  he  was  writing 
about;  thus,  on  one  of  his  visits  to  an  old  friend,  Lady 
Bunbury,  who  lived  in  a  charming  old  rambling  manor- 
house  at  Mildenhall,  in  Suffolk,  he  found  that  she  had 
in  her  possession  some  contemporary  letters  about  the 
tragic  end  of  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald,  with  whom  the 
Bunbury  family  had  been  connected,  and  these  were 
very  useful  to  him.^ 

In  October  Lecky  was  again  in  London.  '  I  am  still 
deep  in  Irish  history,'  he  wrote  to  his  American  corre- 
spondent, Mr.  Lea,  October  21,  '  and  shall  be  so  all  next 
year,  after  which  I  hope  to  be  able  to  realise  a  little 
more  that  Ireland  is  not  at  once  the  centre  and  the 
circumference  of  the  universe!  How  narrowing  a 
long  book  is!' 

Lecky,  notwithstanding,  kept  more  in  touch  with 
the  politics,  the  literature  and  social  life  of  the  day 
than  most  men;  and  however  much  he  might  be  en- 
grossed in  his  work,  his  keen  interest  in  all  that  went 


'  History  of  Ireland,  cabinet  edition,  vol.  iv.  pp.  311  sqq. 


244  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

on  in  the  world  never  flagged.     His  outlook  was  always 
broad  and  his  mind  open  to  new  ideas. 

*I  was  much  interested  in  your  election  paper/  he 
wrote  to  Mr.  Lea  on  November  14,  1888.  '  I  suppose 
you  and  France  represent  the  two  types  of  democ- 
racy to  one  or  other  of  which  the  world  is  tending. 
France  is  certainly  not  encouraging,  and  (considering 
your  admirable  education,  your  immense  advantages, 
and  your  very  high  industrial,  social  and  intellectual 
civihsation)  I  am  not  sure  that  you  are  either.  It 
seems  to  me  at  least  that  America  would  be  very 
unfairly  and  unfavourably  judged  if  she  were  judged 
by  her  newspapers,  her  politicians,  or  by  such  a  mani- 
festo of  principles  as  the  Republican  party  lately  put 
out  —  that,  in  fact,  the  pohtical  side  of  her  civilisation 
is  very  inferior  to  the  other  sides.  Here,  too,  we  have 
had  rapid  and  evident  signs  of  degeneration,  and  our 
Constitution  is  so  plainly  worn  out  —  the  checks  and 
balances  being  all  gone  —  that  some  organic  change 
must  before  very  long  be  made  if  a  great  decadence 
is  to  be  avoided  and  a  great  Empire  held  together.' 

The  sittings  of  the  Parnell  Commission  that  winter 
engrossed  public  attention,  and  their  dramatic  devel- 
opment drew  the  bond  still  closer  between  Gladsto- 
nians  and  Parnellites ;  but  though  the  letters  attributed 
to  Parnell  proved  forgeries,  the  Report  with  the  find- 
ings of  the  Commission  —  which  was  issued  the  follow- 
ing winter  ■ —  severely  condemned  the  methods  of 
Parnellism.^     Meanwhile  Unionists  did  not  relax  their 


1 '  Report     of     the    Special  it  comes  out.     It  is  amusing  to 

Commission,  1888, 'see  Democ-  see     both     sides     proclaiming 

racy  and  Liberty,  vol.  i.  cab-  their   triumph;   but   only   one 

inet   edition,    p.    236,    vol.    ii.  side  prints  the  Report,  and  it 

p.    11.     'I   think   the   Report  hardly    needs    a    Solomon    to 

will    do    great    good,'    wrote  draw  the  inference.' 
Lecky  (to  Mr.  Booth),  'when 


SPEECH   AT   BIRMINGHAM  245 

efforts  to  keep  the  country  alive  to  the  dangers  of  the 
situation. 

In  the  spring  of  18S9  there  was  a  great  anti-Home 
Rule  meeting  at  Birmingham,  which  was  exclusively 
addressed  by  Irishmen.  Lecky  was  asked  to  make  a 
speech,  and  was  the  guest  on  the  occasion  of  the  late 
Mr.  Bunce,  the  very  able  editor  of  the  Birmingham 
Daily  Post. 

He  was  very  much  struck  with  the  various  magnifi- 
cent municipal  institutions  in  that  city  and  the  im- 
mense public  spirit,  intelligence,  and  generosity  which 
they  showed.  He  had  never  seen  anything  like  it, 
and  as  Mr.  Bunce  was  a  leading  person  in  it  all,  he 
felt  that  he  saw  it  to  much  advantage.  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain gave  a  large  political  party,  and  the  meeting  took 
place  the  next  evening  in  the  Town  Hall.  Lecky,  in 
his  speech,  went  over  all  the  objections  to  Home  Rule, 
and  showed  clearly  that  there  would  be  no  finality  in 
it,  and  that  one  of  the  first  objects  of  an  Irish  Parlia- 
ment would  be  to  abolish  any  paper  restrictions  that 
might  be  imposed. 

'For  my  own  part,'  he  said,  'I  cannot  tell  whether 
in  the  vicissitudes  of  politics  some  such  Parliament 
may  not  be  set  up  in  Ireland,  but  of  this  at  least  I  feel 
absolutely  confident,  that  no  such  restricted  Parlia- 
ment can  last.  It  can  have  no  element  of  permanence 
or  finality.  It  will  be  a  mere  step  to  separation  and 
to  the  breaking  up  of  the  Empire,  or  it  will  lead  to  a 
scene  of  confusion  and  ruin  which  will  probably  end 
in  the  reconquest  of  Ireland.' 

He  dealt  with  the  arguments  of  those  who  pretended 
'that  Home  Rule  ought  to  be  given  as  a  kind  of  expia- 
tion for  historical  grievances.' 

'It  is  perfectly  true,'  he  said  in  his  peroration,  'that 


246  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

there  are  many  pages  in  the  history  of  Ireland  that 
will  not  bear  looking  into,  just  as  there  are  many  pages 
that  are  disgraceful  in  the  history  of  the  English  Revo- 
lution, or  of  the  English  Reformation,  or  of  the  estab- 
lishment of  Christianity  in  most  parts  of  Christendom, 
or  of  the  formation  of  the  unity  of  every  great  king- 
dom on  the  Continent.  But  are  the  misdeeds  of  gen- 
erations who  have  long  since  mouldered  in  the  dust 
any  real  reason  for  bringing  down  upon  our  own  gen- 
eration the  unspeakable  calamity  of  a  divided  and 
enfeebled  nation,  for  throwing  a  great  loyal  popula- 
tion out  of  the  protection  of  the  Imperial  Parliament, 
for  planting  in  the  very  heart  of  the  British  Empire 
the  seeds  of  triumphant  and  contagious  anarchy,  and 
perhaps  even  of  civil  war?  I  do  not  think  I  have  any 
disposition  to  undervalue  history,  or  to  underrate  the 
great  lessons  of  guidance  and  charity  it  may  teach, 
but  I  do  most  deliberately  say  that  it  would  be  better 
that  the  Book  of  History  were  never  opened  than  that 
it  should  be  treated  in  a  manner  so  hopelessly,  so  child- 
ishly irrational.  ...  I  trust  that  the  English  people, 
with  their  accustomed  good  sense,  will  brush  away 
these  claptrap  arguments  with  the  contempt  that  they 
deserve  and  will  consider  this  momentous  question 
seriously  and  on  its  real  merits.  There  never  was  a 
question  which  more  deserved  such  treatment;  for 
there  never  was  a  question  which  went  more  directly 
to  the  very  root  of  the  well-being  of  the  Empire.  I 
believe  that  the  more  the  English  people  consider  it, 
the  more  clearly  will  they  perceive  that  it  never  can 
be  either  wise  or  honourable  to  turn  law-breakers 
into  law-makers,  to  subject  a  loyal  population  to  a 
disloyal  one,  or  to  place  a  vital  and  integral  portion 
of  this  great  Empire  in  the  hands  of  men  whose  attach- 
ment to  that  Empire  they  have  the  very  gravest 
reason  to  suspect.' 

His  speech  was  said  to  have  been  excellent  —  in  fact, 
to  have  been  the  speech  of  the  evening,  which  one 


MR.  bryce's  'history'  247 

would   hardly   have  gathered  from   his  own   modest 
accomit. 

He  wrote'  after  the  meeting: 

'  It  was  very  full,  and  a  very  imposing  sight  —  and 
the  immense  size  of  the  hall,  which  is  larger  than 
Exeter  Hall,  made  it  very  alarming.  However,  I 
duly  got  through  my  little  performance,  talking,  as 
usual,  too  fast  (though  I  tried  to  be  slow),  and  forget- 
ting one  or  two  things  I  had  meant  to  say,  and,  thanks 
to  my  typewriting  (of  which  both  copies  were  asked 
for),  I  hope  I  may  not  be  made  to  talk  nonsense. 
Lord  Derby,  as  usual,  was  very  kind,  predicting  that 
no  one  would  again  quote  my  ''  History  "  against  me, 
and  that  I  should  be  forced  into  Parliament  —  neither 
of  which  predictions  (most  happily  not  the  last)  is 
the  least  Ukely  to  come  true.' 

'  I  never  had  to  address  such  an  audience  as  at  Bir- 
mingham,' he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  'for  the  hall  is  one 
of  the  largest  in  England;  holds  from  4000  to  5000 
people,  and  was  very  full.  I  am  glad  it  is  over,  and 
hope  now  to  think  of  nothing  but  my  book,  at  which 
I  am  working  very  hard,  as  I  want  to  begin  printing 
a  part  of  it  within  a  month  or  so. ...  I  saw  the  Attorney- 
General  on  Saturday  at  the  Academy  dinner;  he  said 
Parnell  was  so  completely  broken  down  by  his  cross- 
examination  that  he  was  quite  done  for  and  could 
never  recover.  Whether  the  outside  public  will  take 
this  view  remains  to  be  seen.' 

Mr.  Bryce's  'History  of  the  American  Common- 
wealth' was  among  the  books  which  appeared  about 
that  time  and  greatly  interested  him. 

'I  was  glad,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Lea,  February  21, 


'  To  his  wife.    The  Birming-      leaflet  and  used  by  the  Lib- 
ham  speech  was,  hke  the  Not-      eral  Unionist  Association, 
tingham    one,    printed    as     a 


248  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

1889,  'to  see  your  name  and  help  in  Bryce's  new  book, 
which  I  hope  you  Uke  as  much  on  your  side  of  the 
Atlantic  as  we  do  on  ours.  Here  the  second  volume 
has  especially  made  a  great  impression,  for  although 
we  knew  a  good  deal  about  your  Federal  Constitution, 
very  few  Englishmen  knew  in  any  detail  about  your 
State  Governments,  or  about  the  practical  working 
of  the  "  machine."  I  am  sure  the  book  on  our  side  of 
the  water  will  do  good.  I  think  the  best  judges  over 
here  believe  that  sooner  or  later  something  must  be 
done  to  restrict  the  omnipotence  of  such  a  Parliament 
as  we  possess,  and  it  can  only  be  done  by  building  on 
your  model.' 

(To  the  Same.)  May  6,  1889.  — ' .  .  .  Bryce's  book 
has  given  rise  to  a  good  deal  of  comment  over  here. 
You  will  have  seen  Lord  Acton's  article  in  the  Histori- 
cal Review,  which  seems  to  me  (Uke  a  good  many 
of  Lord  Acton's  writings)  to  throw  much  more  light  on 
the  multifariousness  of  Lord  Acton's  reading  than  on 
the  real  merits  and  significance  of  the  subject  he  is 
treating.  An  article  which  struck  me  far  more  is  in 
the  current  number  of  the  Edinburgh.  You  probably 
would  not  agree  with  it,  but  I  am  sure  it  would  interest 
you,  as  it  is  by  the  writer  who  (in  my  opinion  at  least) 
is  the  best  English  writer  on  political  subjects  since 
the  death  of  Maine  —  Professor  Dicey.  I  am  working 
very  hard  winding  up  my  two  volumes  for  the  press. 
You,  no  doubt,  know  by  experience  what  a  trouble- 
some matter  that  is.' 

Judge  Go  wan  sent  him  (March  1889)  a  review  of  Mr. 
Bryce's  book,  and  in  thanking  him  Lecky  wrote: 

'It  contains  so  excellent  a  summary  of  the  chief 
defects  of  the  American  Constitution  that  I  have  cut 
it  out  to  keep  for  further  use.  At  the  same  time,  I 
wish  much  that  we  had  some  provisions  in  our  Consti- 
tution for  restricting  organic  change  resembling  those 
in  the  United  States.     A  Parliament  which  is  at  once 


THE   HARZ    MOUNTAINS  249 

omnipotent  and  democratic  is  not,  I  think,  a  Govern- 
ment that  can  long  steer  safely  a  great  empire.  The 
second  volume  of  Bryce  interested  me  most,  and  at 
this  side  of  the  water  his  elucidation  of  the  nature  and 
working  of  the  local  legislatures  was  very  new  as  well 
as  very  valuable.  I  must  thank  you  also  for  sending 
me  your  very  comprehensive  and  interesting  speech 
about  the  grand  juries.  It  is  curious  to  see  those 
old-world  institutions  flourishing,  or  at  least  existing, 
in  your  new  country.  ...  I  am  at  last  bringing  to  an 
end  the  History  which  has  occupied  so  many  years 
of  my  life.  It  will  be  a  strange  sensation  to  have  ter- 
minated.' 

During  the  summer  he  began  correcting  the  proof- 
sheets,  which  kept  him  in  London  till  the  middle  of 
August.  'I  do  not  agree  with  you,'  he  wrote  in  the 
summer  (August  29,  1889)  to  Mr.  Lea,  'in  finding  the 
transition  from  MS.  to  print  a  disagreeable  and  dis- 
heartening thing;  on  the  contrary,  I  usually  find  it 
very  pleasant;  but  the  explanation  probably  is  that 
you  write  one  of  the  most  perfect  and  I  one  of  the 
most  detestable  of  handwritings.'  ^ 

He  did  some  revising  in  the  country  in  Holland,  and 
only  took  a  short  holiday  in  the  autvimn.  The  moun- 
tains of  the  Harz  are  among  the  most  accessible  to 
go  to  from  Holland  for  bracing.  He  had  only  seen 
them  hastily  before,  and  he  liked  going  back  there 
now  with  his  wife.  The  scenery  is  extremely  fine  and 
attractive,  and  there  are  many  legends  connected  with 
it  which  greatly  add  to   its   charm.     They  spent   a 


1 '  You     are    fortunate     in  succeed  in  attaining  the  ideal 

finding    enjoyment    in    proof  much  more  nearly  than  I  do. 

reading,'    answered    Mr.  Lea,  This   is   the   explanation    and 

September    22,    1889,    'fortu-  not  the  difference  between  our 

nate  because  it  shows  that  you  handwritings.' 


250  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

lovely  autumn  day  in  the  valley  of  the  Use,  at  the  foot 
of  the  Brocken  Mountains,  where  the  Witches  in  '  Faust ' 
held  their  meeting  on  Walpurgis  Night.  They  went 
on  to  Weimar,  from  where  Lecky  wrote  to  his  step- 
mother, September  24,  1889: 

*We  were  delighted  with  Thale,  which  is  at  the 
bottom  of  the  Bodethal,  the  most  beautiful  valley  in 
the  Harz,  and,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  I  have 
ever  seen.  It  reminded  me  a  good  deal  of  the  finest 
Pyrenean  scenery,  especially  of  the  Cauterets  Valley 
—  very  high  and  perfectly  precipitous,  jagged  rocks; 
vast  and  exceedingly  beautiful  woods  of  fir,  beech, 
oak,  and  birch,  stretching  for  many  miles;  streams  of 
the  clearest  water,  sometimes  as  broad  as  the  Adour, 
but  often  narrowed  to  three  or  four  feet  as  they  rush 
through  clefts  of  rock,  sometimes  exceedingly  grand 
and  savage,  and  at  other  times  of  a  very  restful  and 
tranquil  beauty.  We  found  the  autumn  tints  of  the 
woods  in  the  utmost  beauty,  and  in  one  of  our  drives 
we  came  across  four  wild  deer.  Except  one  day,  the 
weather  was  exceedingly  fine,  though  very  cold  — 
the  hotels  just  on  the  eve  of  closing  for  the  winter.  I 
do  not  think  we  saw  a  single  Enghsh  person  in  the 
Harz,  yet  I  know  Uttle  scenery  that  is  really  finer,  and 
the  air  (sweeping  through  the  great  fir  forests)  seemed 
to  me  as  good  as  Switzerland,  and  it  is  all  so  very  near. 
.  .  .  We  saw  near  Thale  a  very  curious  old  castle  of 
the  Dukes  of  Brunswick  —  Blankenburg  —  where  Maria 
Theresa  was  born  and  where  the  Comte  d'Artois  (Louis 
XVIII.)  spent  part  of  his  exile.  It  is  full  of  interesting 
old  portraits  of  the  many  families  with  which  the 
Brunswicks  intermarried.' 

They  spent  some  days  at  Weimar  among  the  fasci- 
nating reminiscenses  of  Goethe  and  Schiller;  stayed  at 
Eisenach  and  saw  the  Wartburg,  with  all  its  memories 
of  Luther  and  the  Meistersinger.     The  autumn  col- 


COMPLETION    OF  THE    '  HISTORY  '  251 

ouring  of  the  forests  in  Thuringia  —  the  bright  crimson 
of  the  maple  trees  —  left  an  indelible  impression.  They 
stopped  at  Cassel  to  see  the  admirable  picture  gallery 
and  Wilhelmshohe;  and  they  went  home  by  Paris, 
where  there  was  another  exhibition,  on  a  more  extended 
scale  even  than  the  former  one. 

On  his  return  he  was  again  deep  in  Irish  history. 

'I  cannot  make  any  prediction,'  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Booth  in  November,  '  about  my  new  Irish  volumes, 
except  that  they  are  hkely  to  be  long  and  tiresome 
and  are  tolerably  sure  to  get  me  into  a  scrape  with 
both  parties.  The  fact  is  that  the  Union  was  as 
corrupt  and  discreditable  a  transaction  as  could  well 
be,  and  the  more  it  is  looked  into  the  more  I  think  it 
will  appear  so;  all  of  which  is  not  the  smallest  reason 
for  "expiating"  the  destruction  of  a  ParUament  of 
landlords  by  establishing  a  Parliament  of  Land- 
Leaguers.  The  old  Whigs,  like  Lord  Grey  and  Lord 
Russell,  while  steadily  resisting  repeal,  never  for  a 
moment  questioned  the  corruption  of  the  means  by 
which  the  Union  was  carried;  but  the  present  Union- 
ists have  taken  it  into  their  heads  to  defend  their 
very  excellent  poUtics  by  very  indifferent  history. 
The  work  of  what  the  Times  calls  my  "impulsive 
boyhood"  was  a  little  over-coloured,  but  I  certainly 
deny  that  it  is  substantially  wrong.' 

During  the  winter  Lecky  finished  the  writing  of  the 
'History,'  while  he  was  simultaneously  correcting  the 
proof-sheets  of  the  earlier  part.  In  a  riotebook,  chiefly 
of  literary  entries,  there  is  the  following:  'March  1, 
1890.  —  Wrote  the  last  pages  of  my  "  History  of  Eng- 
land."' He  had  hoped  to  bring  it  out  in  the  spring, 
but  as  it  would  have  been  ready  too  late  for  the  pub- 
lishing season,  he  was  advised  to  put  it  off  till  the 
autumn. 


252  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  February  20,  1890.  —  '  I  had  been 
working  extremely  hard  to  be  able  to  get  my  book  out 
at  the  beginning  of  May,  but  Longman  tells  me  that 
for  various  sordid  reasons  it  is  much  better  to  defer 
the  publication  till  October;  so  I  am  now  taking  mat- 
ters more  easily.  The  end  of  this  book  I  find  very 
difficult.  It  is  impossible  to  conclude  a  history  of 
the  Union  without  going  into  its  consequences,  and 
therefore  dealing  with  present  politics,  which  is  not  in 
general  desirable  in  what  aspires  to  be  a  standard 
history.  I  cannot,  however,  help  it,  and  must  face 
the  charge  of  writing  a  party  pamphlet  on  account 
of  two  or  three  concluding  pages.  I  want,  when  I 
get  it  off  my  hands,  to  try  if  I  can  do  something  with 
my  "Leaders  of  Pubhc  Opinion,"  wliich  has  been  long 
out  of  print  and  much  in  demand.' 

He  was  asked  at  this  time  to  write  an  article 
for  the  American  review,  the  Forum,  on  the  influ- 
ences which  had  a  part  in  the  formation  of  his 
character.  It  was  to  be  one  of  a  series  written  by 
various  authors.  Though  he  disliked  being  autobio- 
graphical, the  proposed  subject  was  not  uncongenial 
to  him,  as  it  left  him  a  great  latitude  of  choosing 
his  own  line. 

While  the  mornings  were  devoted  to  work,  he  gave 
some  sittings  in  the  afternoons  to  his  friend  Sir  Edgar 
Boehm,  the  sculptor,  who  had  asked  to  do  his  bust. 
It  was  interesting  to  see  with  what  extreme  care 
Boehm  modelled  his  subject,  and  how  he  strove  to 
bring  out  the  mind  and  character.  He  succeeded 
admirably,  and  repHcas  of  the  bust  are  precious  pos- 
sessions in  more  places  than  one.  It  was  among  the 
last  works  of  Boehm,  for  he  died  early  in  the  following 
winter,  leaving  a  great  blank  among  his  friends,  as 
well  as  in  the  world  of  art.  Lecky  wrote  a  notice  of 
him  in  the  Spectator,  in  which  he  showed  his  apprecia- 


DECLINES   REQUEST   TO   LECTURE  253 

tion  of  Boehm's  fine  chivalrous  nature  as  well  as  of 
his  artistic  genius. 

In  May  1890  Lecky  received  an  urgent  and  most 
kindly  worded  request  from  Dr.  Butler,  the  Master  of 
Trinity,  whether,  'even  with  a  sadly  short  notice,'  he 
'  could  be  persuaded  to  do  a  great  service  to  the  Uni- 
versity '  by  undertaking  to  deliver  the  Rede  Lecture  at 
Cambridge  in  June.  Lecky  usually  declined  all  re- 
quests he  received  to  lecture,  both  in  England  and 
America,  and  though  he  would  have  been  glad  to 
render  a  service  to  the  University,  he  felt  obliged  to 
refuse  this  one  also,  as  all  his  time  was  taken  up.^ 
At  the  same  time  he  had  to  decline  a  request  from  Pro- 
fessor Knight  to  write  a  University  Extension  manual, 
'for  I  have  quite  as  much  literary  work  on  hand  as  I 
can  manage,'  he  wrote,  '  and  I  have  very  little  of  the 
happy  power  of  turning  easily  from  subject  to  subject. 
I  find  that  in  order  to  do  anything  really  well  I  must 
concentrate  myself  severely  on  my  own  lines  of  work 
and  refuse  many  tempting  but  distracting  offers. 
Please  forgive  me.' 

The  article  in  the  Forum,  which  came  out  on  June 
1-,  was,  of  course,  specially  interesting  to  an  old  college 


I  As  there   is   a   somewhat  asked  to  give  the  Rede  Lec- 

ambiguous    reference    to    this  ture,  but  he  had  to  decHne  for 

matter  in  Sir  R.  Jebb's  Life,  the  same  reason, 
(p.  275),  it  is  as  well  to  state  =  There   was   also    a    notice 

that    Dr.    Butler's    letter    to  with  a  portrait  of  him  in  the 

Lecky  was  dated  May  8,  and  July    number    of     Men    and 

that    Lecky   lost   no   time   in  Women,  which  gave  portraits 

answering,  for  the  Master  was  accompanied  with  outline  biog- 

able  to  make  the    same  pro-  raphies.     He  was  asked  to  give 

posal  to  Professor  Jebb  on  the  all  the  material,  and  thought 

following    day,     May    9.     In  it  best  to  do  so;  for,  though  he 

1894    Lecky   was   once   more  wished   that   his   private   life 


254  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

friend  who  had  seen  'the  formative  influences'  at 
work.  Mr.  Booth  thought  it  was  one-sided  and  that 
it  did  not  take  all  these  influences  into  account;  he 
felt  sure,  he  wrote,  that  Lecky  in  his  college  days 
read  Shelley  (of  whom  he  did  not  speak)  more  fre- 
quently than  Whately's  'Errors  of  Romanism,'  and 
declaimed  Grattan  and  Curran  oftener  than  the  Ser- 
mons of  Bishop  Butler.  Had  he  not  been  a  little 
ungrateful  not  to  mention  the  Historical  Society? 
and  might  not  his  college  study  of  Irish  history,  of 
which  he  also  said  nothing,  have  influenced  him  in 
taking  up  the  eighteenth  century  as  the  magnum 
opus?  'Whatever  the  cause  of  the  "formation," 
there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  result  —  the  only  matter 
of  regret  is  that  the  spirit  of  Grattan  was  less  powerful 
and  that  an  oratorical  faculty  of  rare  brilliancy  should 
have  remained  so  long  unused.' 
Lecky  answered: 

Athenceum  Club:  July  4,  1890.  —  'I  was  much 
amused  by  your  criticism  of  my  article.  No  one  else 
is  as  competent  to  criticise  it  as  you  are.  I  was  asked 
only  to  write  an  article  of  4000  words,  and  in  that 
space  one  does  not  attempt  an  autobiography  (a 
thing,  moreover,  I  should  hate  to  do).  To  write 
effectively  it  is  necessary  to  take  a  single  line,  and  I 
think  that  of  theological  development  is  the  most 
important,  and  also  the  one  most  likely  to  interest 
a  far-off  public,  who  certainly  could  not  care  about 
debating  societies  or  rhetoric.  I  think,  witliin  those 
lines,  what  I  wrote  was  a  true  account,  though,  of 
course,  as  you  truly  say,  it  was  not  an  adequate  or 
complete  one;  and  I  was  glad  to  have  an  opportunity 
of  saying  something  about  both  Whately  and  Buckle. 


could  be  kept  out  of  publicity,       '  and  if  true  versons  are    not 
he  felt  this  was  very  difficult,       given,  false  ones  are  invented.' 


CARDINAL   MANNING  255 

I  looked  over  my  own  "  Religious  Tendencies  of  the 
Age"  before  writing  the  article,  and  it  a  good  deal 
freshened  up  my  recollections.  I  cannot  say  I  regret 
not  being  in  politics  —  I  have  neither  the  business 
faculty  nor  the  callousness  required  for  such  a  career, 
and  English  politics  are  not  now  an  inviting  sphere. 
I  have  had  to  make  two  speeches  within  the  last  ten 
days  —  one  at  a  Conservative  club  *  which  invites 
Liberal  Unionists,  and  last  night  at  the  Geographical 
Society  at  the  Stanley  banquet.  I  have  all  but  fin- 
ished my  proof-sheets,  with  the  exception  of  the  index, 
which  I  do  not  make,  and  wliich  has  not  yet  come  to 
me.  I  wish  it  had,  for  I  want  much  to  get  away  to 
fresher  air.' 

Before  leaving  London  that  summer  Lecky  wrote  a 
short  notice  of  Miss  Lawless'  'Essex  in  L'eland'  for 
the  Nineteenth  Century.  He  was  an  enthusiastic 
admirer  of  the  writings  of  Miss  Lawless,  who  was, 
moreover,  a  great  friend  of  his.  In  a  letter  on  the 
subject  which  he  wrote  to  her  he  mentioned  the  fol- 
lowing incident: 

'.  .  .  I  had  a  curious  colloquy  a  few  days  ago  at  the 
Athenaeum  with  Cardinal  Manning.  He  came  up  to 
me  and  asked  whether  I  knew  you  and  your  books, 
and  praised  them  greatly,  dwelling  especially  upon  the 
"  History."  He  then  asked  me  whether  I  had  read 
his  own  speech  claiming  for  the  people  of  Ireland  the 
ownership  of  their  own  soil  and  the  right  of  managing 
their  own  affairs.  That,  he  said,  he  considered  "mod- 
erate Home  Rule,"  and  hoped  I  went  a  long  way  with 
him.  I  told  him  I  thought  his  phrases  required  a 
good  deal  of  definition,  and  that  I  did  not  at  all  follow 
his  banner.  "Well,"  he  said,  "you  are  a  cautious 
man  and  an  historian,  but  I  can  only  say  to  you  what 


>  The  Cecil  Club,  June  25,  1890. 


256  WILLIAM   EDWAKD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

I  said  to  the  Holy  Father.  I  said,  'Holy  Father,  if 
I  was  an  Irish  bishop  you  would  have  to  chastise  me 
a  hundred  times.'"  "I  can  quite  imagine  it,  your 
Eminence/'  I  said;  and  he  laughed  and  went  away. 
What  fiery  people  archbishops  nowadays  are ! ' 

Though  Lecky  had  been  for  so  many  years  engrossed 
in  history,  he  never  lost  his  interest  in  his  earlier 
subjects;  and  he  still  thoughtfully  watched  the  religious 
tendencies  of  the  age.  His  American  correspondent, 
Mr.  Lea,  was  making  a  study  of  the  indulgences. 
Lecky  had  been  struck,  in  Spain,  with  the  fact  that 
bull-fights  were  often  given  for  charities;  and  he  had 
heard  that  even  indulgences  were  granted  to  persons 
who  attended  bull-fights  given  for  particular  religious 
purposes.  This  seemed  to  him  incredible.  He  hoped 
Mr.  Lea's  investigations  would  throw  some  light  on 
that  subject. 

'  I  am  much  interested  in  hearing,'  Lecky  wrote, 
'that  you  have  taken  up  the  great  subject  of  Indul- 
gences, though  I  fear  it  will  make  the  completion  of 
your  "History  of  the  Inquisition"  very  doubtful.  .  .  . 
Nothing  in  religious  questions  has  struck  me  more 
than  the  enormous  difference  between  the  official 
Catholicism  of  the  Council  of  Trent  and  of  the  writings 
of  Bossuet  or  Newman,  and  the  pure  and  manifest 
polytheism  and  idolatry  of  the  actual  religion  as  it 
is  practised  in  a  great  part  of  Europe,  with  the  direct 
sanction  and  under  the  special  benediction  of  the 
highest  authorities  of  the  Church.  I  believe  an  inade- 
quate appreciation  of  this  difference  has  had  a  great 
deal  to  say  to  the  fascination  Catholicism  has  during 
this  century  exercised  over  many  Englishmen.  D51- 
hnger,  I  believe,  used  to  say  that  one  of  the  gi'eat 
distinctions  between  Ultramontane  and  Liberal  Cathol- 
icism was  the  extent  to  which  what  is  called  la  petite 
devotion  —  relics,  pilgrimages,  miracle-working  images 


DEATH    OF    NEWMAN  257 

—  superseded  in  the  former  the  great  hnes  of  Christian 
devotion,  and  he  considered  this  largely  due  to  the 
influence  of  the  Jesuits. 

'The  future  of  America  and  democratic  Catholicism 
is  a  very  interesting  question.  Here  there  is  an  evi- 
dent tendency  on  the  part  of  some  important  leaders 
(Manning  especially)  to  make  popular  support  rather 
than  Government  favour  the  great  leverage  of  the 
Church;  and  the  definition  of  Infallibility,  while  sep- 
arating Catholicism  still  further  from  the  educated, 
tends,  I  think,  to  strengthen  its  discipline  and  its  hold 
over  the  masses.  I  do  not  see  how  a  schism  is  now 
possible  without  subverting  the  whole  Catholic  sj'stem 
in  the  separated  body,  for  the  Papal  authority  is  more 
than  ever  the  very  keystone  of  the  arch,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible, without  giving  up  the  whole  Catholic  theory,  to 
fly  in  the  face  of  a  Pope  who  has  been  pronounced 
infallible  by  a  General  Council  and  accepted  as  such 
by  the  whole  episcopate.  Besides,  indifference,  scep- 
ticism and  the  alienation  of  a  great  portion  of  the 
moderate  and  intelligent  lay  intellect  which  once  tem- 
pered fanaticism  and  superstition  all  tend  to  throw 
the  guidance  of  the  machine  into  Ultramontane  hands. 
I  am  taking  my  usual  holiday  on  the  Continent,  but 
hope  to  be  again  in  London  about  the  end  of  October.' 

The  death  of  Newman,  which  occurred  on  August  11, 
1890,  made  a  great  impression  in  England.  Lecky 
always  admired  Newman's  eloquent  style  and  subtle 
philosophic  reasoning,  and  he  had  been  from  early 
days  familiar  with  his  writings.  'Newman's  death,' 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Lea  (February  1891),  'has  a  good  deal 
revived  over  here  the  interest  in  his  books  and  specula- 
tions. It  is  a  curiously  wide  influence  in  England, 
for  there  is  a  strong  sceptical  element  in  them  which 
appeals  to  many  who  are  far  from  Catholicism.  There 
is  a  remarkable  article  on  the  subject  by  Leslie  Stephen 
in  this  month's  Nineteenth  Century.' 
18 


258  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

The  last  proof-sheets  of  the  '  History '  were  corrected 
during  the  summer  hohdays  in  Holland,  and  Lecky 
afterwards  went  with  his  wife  to  Chamounix,  Aix-les- 
Bains,  Grenoble,  Hyeres,  and  home  by  Paris.  From 
Grenoble  they  made  an  expedition  to  the  Grande 
Chartreuse,  which  is  reached  by  a  magnificent  road 
leading  through  a  deep  wild  gorge.  The  monastery 
lies  at  the  foot  of  a  range  of  mountains  in  the  silence 
and  solitude  of  the  'Desert,'  the  place  originally  se- 
lected by  St.  Bruno,  the  great  founder  of  the  Order. 
Lecky  spent  a  night  under  its  roof  and  was  greatly 
interested  in  the  visit,  though  intercourse  with  silent 
monks  is  necessarily  of  a  limited  description.^ 

In  October  1890  the  last  two  volumes  of  the '  History' 
came  out.  They  were  exclusively  devoted  to  Ireland, 
and  included  the  history  of  the  Rebellion  and  the  Union. 
The  reviewers  were  unanimous  in  considering  them  as 
the  worthy  completion  of  a  great  work.  Even  those 
who  did  not  agree  with  his  political  conclusions  paid 
tribute  to  his  great  qualities  as  an  historian  and  a 
writer.  All  felt  that  at  last  they  had  a  true  account 
of  the  Rebellion  and  the  Union  —  written  not  only 
with  a  full  mastery  of  all  the  available  sources,  but 
with  that  wise  and  unbiassed  appreciation  of  the  facts 
for  which  all  his  writings  were  conspicuous. 

'Never  before,'  said  the  Quarterly  Review,  'have 
Irish  affairs  been  the  subject  of  such  minute  investi- 
gation and  detailed  narrative.  The  first  word  must 
be  one  of  grateful  acknowledgment  of  the  thoroughness 
and  perfection  of  detail  with  which  the  story  has  been 
told.  Only  those  who  have  had  occasion  to  explore 
a  few  of  the  many  sources  of  information,  which  Mr. 


1  There  was  an  account  of  the  visit  in  the  Nineteenth  Century 
of  March  1891. 


APPRECIATIONS    OF  THE    HISTORY  259 

Lecky  has  visited,  can  fully  appreciate  the  vastness 
of  his  labour  or  the  ability  he  has  displayed  in  sifting 
from  among  the  materials  at  his  command  the  essen- 
tially important  particulars.' 

Among  those  who  had  looked  forward  to  the  volumes 
was  the  late  Duke  of  Argyll.  Everyone  who  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  Duke,  or  who  has  read  his  books, 
his  articles,  his  speeches,  and  the  record  of  his  life, 
knows  how  able  and  versatile  he  was.  A  keen  Unionist, 
he  was  also  deeply  interested  in  the  agrarian  problem 
in  Ireland  and  in  the  history  of  the  country,  and  various 
communications  passed  between  him  and  Lecky  on 
those  subjects.  They  did  not  always  agree,  but  there 
was  great  mutual  respect. 

'I  shall  be  anxious  to  see  your  chapters/  wrote  the 
Duke;  'you  seem  to  me  always  to  write  in  so  judicial  a 
spirit,  that  I  have  no  doubt  I  shall  like  them.'  When 
the  volumes  came  out  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  tell 
him  that  he  had  been  reading  them  with  the  'usual 
feeling  of  satisfaction  which  your  sincere  treatment 
of  your  subject  is  sure  to  give.' 

'You  will  forgive  me,'  wrote  Dean  Boyle,  'for  con- 
gratulating you  heartily  on  the  completion  of  a  great 
book;  and  as  to  the  interest  of  the  last  two  volumes, 
what  can  I  say  but  what  all  have  already  said  when 
they  have  finished  them  —  that  the  impartiality  and 
dignity  of  the  narrative  cannot  be  surpassed?' 

The  tribute  Lecky  paid  to  the  old  Irish  Brigade 
could  not  fail  to  touch  those  whose  families  had  been 
connected  with  it.  '  Your  noble  passage  about  the 
Irish  Brigade,'  wrote  the  daughter-in-law  of  O'Connell, 
'is  worthy  to  rank  with  Thorwaldsen's  "Memorial 
Lion"  carved  to  the  memory  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth's 
Swiss  Guards  on  the  Crag  by  Lucerne.' 

Friends  across  the  Atlantic  were  no  less  appreciative. 


260  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

'I  do  think/  wrote  Judge  Gowan  from  Canada,  'no 
fair-minded  man  could  go  over  your  last  volumes 
without  saying  to  himself,  This  is  the  work  of  an  honest 
man  who  has  patiently  and  laboriously  gone  to  the 
root  of  everything,  and  has  shown  in  all  his  conclusions 
a  calm,  judicial  spirit,  a  manifest  desire  to  arrive  at 
truth.  You  have  truly  directed  a  powerful  "search- 
light" into  the  dark  ravines  of  Irish  history.' 


CHAPTER  X 


1890-1892. 


Revision  of  the  '  History  of  the  Eighteenth  Century '  —  Writes 
various  essays:  Ireland  in  the  Light  of  History;  Why  Home 
Rule  is  Undesirable;  Madame  de  Stael;  Carlyle's  Message 
to  his  Age;  Sir  Robert  Peel's  Private  Correspondence  — 
American  Copyright  Bill  —  Efifects  of  Parnell  divorce  case 

—  Litt.D.  degree,  Cambridge  —  T.C.D.  dinner  —  Travels  — 
Poems  —  National  Portrait  Gallery  —  Begins  'Democracy 
and  Liberty '  —  Regius  Professorship  of  History  at  Oxford 

—  Royal  Literary  Fund  —  Letters  on  Home  Rule  —  The 
PoHtical  Outlook  —  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  —  Dublin 
University  Tercentenary  —  General  Election  —  Holiday  in 
the  Alps  —  '  The  Political  Value  of  History  '  —  Lord  Tenny- 
son's death  —  Completion  of  the  revised  edition  of  the 
'History.' 

The  completion  of  a  long  and  arduous  task,  though  a 
satisfaction,  leaves  a  blank.  '  It  is  a  strange  feeling,' 
Lecky  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  from  Nimes  in  October  1890, 
'finishing  a  book  which  has  taken  nineteen  years; 
stranger  still,  wanting  a  fixed  task.' 

He  did  not,  however,  at  once  begin  a  long  book.  He 
wished  to  revise  the  '  History '  carefully  for  a  cabinet 
edition  which  was  to  come  out  early  in  1892.  The 
suggestion  had  been  made  to  him  at  different  times 
that  it  would  be  desirable  to  divide  the  Irish  from  the 
English  part,  so  that  each  might  be  procured  sepa- 
rately, and  this  he  now  wanted  to  carry  out.  It  in- 
volved a  good  deal  of  rearranging,  for  though  some 

261 


262  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

chapters  were  exclusively  Irish,  the  history  of  the  Irish 
penal  laws  formed  part  of  a  general  review  of  the  state 
of  religious  liberty  in  an  English  chapter. 

Writing  to  his  friend  Professor  Tyndall,  who  had 
had  a  long  illness,  he  says  (February  3,  1891) : 

'  I  wonder  whether  you  are  able  to  go  on  with  any 
scientific  work.  I  always  believe  that  nothing  is  so 
good  for  one  as  the  calming  influence  of  the  kind  of 
work  we  have  made  our  own.  I  fear  I  shall  some  day 
miss  mine  —  at  least,  until  I  can  start  something  fresh. 
At  present,  however,  I  am  abundantly  occupied  going 
over  my  whole  "  History "  with  a  view  to  a  cabinet 
edition,  which  will,  I  hope,  appear  next  year.  It  is 
rather  a  thankless  work,  as  probably  no  one  will  dis- 
cover any  corrections;  but  there  is  a  comfort  in  get- 
ting one's  books  as  perfect  as  one  can.' 

Various  small  tasks  also  came  in  his  way.  At  the 
request  of  the  editor  of  the  North  American  Review  he 
wrote  two  articles  on  Ireland.  The  first  appeared  in 
January  1891  under  the  title  of  *  Ireland  in  the  Light  of 
History '  ;^  the  second, '  Why  Home  Rule  is  Undesirable,' 
in  the  following  March.  He  also  wrote  a  review  in  the 
American  Forum-  of  Lady  Blennerhassett's  'Madame 
de  Stael,'  which  had  lately  been  translated  into  English. 
Lecky  had  a  great  admiration  for  the  brilliant  gifts  of 
the  authoress,  and  for  many  years  past  a  warm  friend- 
ship existed  between  them  and  their  families.  The 
book,  he  wrote  to  her  at  the  time,  impressed  him  more 
and  more  as  he  read  it,  'with  a  deep  sense  of  its  vast 
range  of  knowledge  and  sympathies.' 

He  was  asked  by  an  old  college  friend,  the  Rev. 
Freeman  Wills,  to  give  a  short  Sunday  address  on  Jan- 

1  This  essay  has  now  been  published  in  the  Historical  and 
Political  Essays. 

2  Ibid. 


COPYRIGHT  263 

uary  25,  as  an  interlude  in  a  musical  entertainment 
at  the  Lambeth  Polytechnic,  and  he  selected  for  his 
subject  Carlyle's  'Message  to  his  Age,'  to  which  his 
personal  knowledge  of  Carlyle  gave  a  special  interest. 
It  was  afterwards  published  in  the  Contemporary 
Review  of  October  1891.^ 

In  the  summer  he  contributed  an  article  on  Pitt  to 
'Chamber's  Encyclopaedia,'  and  at  the  urgent  request 
of  Mr.  Reeve  he  wrote  a  review  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's 
private  correspondence  which  had  lately  been  published 
by  Mr.  Parker.  This  came  out  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  of  October  1891.- 

That  year  there  was  at  last  a  chance  of  an  American 
Copyright  Bill  passing.  Hitherto  British  authors  had 
been  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  American  publishers; 
and  though,  by  some  arrangement,  they  could  some- 
times obtain  a  small  royalty,  there  were  no  legal  rights 
by  which  this  could  be  enforced.  Lecky  held  very 
strong  views  about  literary  property,  which  he  con- 
sidered rested  on  'the  highest  and  simplest  title  by 
which  property  can  be  held  —  that  of  creation.'^  He 
thought  the  argument  altogether  untrue  that  the  author 
has  no  right  to  legal  protection  because  he  gives  a  form 
to  ideas  and  knowledge  which  are  floating  in  the 
intellectual  atmosphere  around  him.  'An  author 
claims  no  monopoly  in  his  ideas,  but  the  form  in  which 
he  moulds  them  is  so  essentially  the  main  element  in 
the  question  that  the  distinction  is  for  all  practical 
purposes  trivial.  There  is  no  idea  in  Gray's  Elegy 
which  has  not  passed  through  thousands  of  minds; 
Gray  alone  gave  them  the  form  which  is  immortal.'^ 


1  Published  among  the  His-  ^  Democracy     and     Liberty, 
torical  and  Political  Essays.           cabinet  edition,  vol.  i.  p.  218. 

2  Ibid.  *  Ibid.  p.  219. 


264  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

He  took  a  good  deal  of  trouble  in  the  matter,  com- 
municating with  influential  people  in  both  countries 
and  endeavouring  to  smooth  over  difficulties. 

'I  think  it  so  very  kind  of  you/  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Lea 
on  March  22,  1891,  Ho  have  written  to  me  so  promptly 
and  so  fully  about  the  new  Copyright  Bill.  I  con- 
gratulate you  very  sincerely  on  the  part  you  have 
taken  in  a  work  which  will  probably  have  deeper  and 
more  far-reaching  consequences  than  the  immense 
majority  of  the  measures  which  on  either  side  of  the 
Atlantic  fill  the  minds  of  men.  As  for  the  points  of 
possible  difficulty,  I  have  done  what  I  could.  .  .  .' 

Though  the  Bill  involved  irksome  complications  for 
British  authors,  yet  it  established  a  recognition  of 
their  rights  and  settled,  as  far  as  it  went,  an  impor- 
tant question. 

The  political  horizon  meanwhile  had  undergone  a 
great  change.  Tn  1890  the  Home  Rule  cause  received 
a  severe  blow  from  an  unexpected  quarter.  It  may 
be  remembered  that  the  Parnell  divorce  case  had 
suddenly  roused  the  indignation  of  the  Nonconfor- 
mists; that  they  had  obliged  Mr.  Gladstone  to  break 
with  the  Irish  leader;  and  that  the  Irish  Catholic 
Church  had  now  turned  against  him  and  caused  a 
division  among  Irish  Home-Rulers.  To  the  philos- 
opher the  situation  presented  a  curious  aspect. 

'We  most  of  us  here  believe,'  Lecky  wrote  to  Judge 
Gowan  in  December  1890,  'that  Home  Rule  is  broken 
up  for  an  indefinite  period.  It  seems  very  unlikely 
that,  after  the  schism  in  Ireland  and  the  shock  the 
Nonconformists  have  received,  the  next  Parhament 
will  be  in  favour  of  Home  Rule;  and  if  it  is,  the  major- 
ity is  almost  certain  to  be  far  too  small  to  carry  it; 
while  Gladstone,  being  just  eighty-one,  can  hardly 
live  through  more  than  one  more  ParUament.     Besides, 


CAMBRIDGE   HONORARY   DEGREE  265 

Parnell  has  succedcd  in  pledging  the  whole  Home 
Rule  party  in  Ireland  to  accept  no  measure  which  does 
not  give  them  the  control  of  the  Constabulary  and 
of  the  land.  ...  I  am  glad  of  it,  but  I  do  not  think 
all  this  raises  one's  respect  for  the  intelUgence  of  the 
good  people  of  these  islands  —  the  English  Noncon- 
formists, who  were  perfectly  unshaken  by  all  the  reve- 
lations of  conspiracy,  outrage,  and  organised  plunder 
made  before  the  Special  Commission,  and  yet  thrown 
into  hysterics  about  Mrs.  O'Shea;  the  Irish  populace, 
through  the  mere  love  of  a  fight,  throwing  up  the  one 
chance  of  their  Home  Rule!' 

And  in  February  1891  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Lea:  'The 
Irish  question  here  is,  I  think,  at  last  beginning  some- 
what to  recede,  and  socialistic  or  semi-socialistic  ques- 
tions are  rapidly  assuming  the  first  place.  Mrs.  O'Shea 
has  certainly  changed  profoundly  the  prospects  and 
currents  of  English  politics  —  with  such  wisdom  the 
world  is  governed!' 

In  the  summer  of  1891  Lecky  received  an  honorary 
degree  at  Cambridge,  at  the  same  time  as  Lord  Wal- 
singham,  Lord  Dufferin,  Sir  Alfred  Lyall^  Professor 
Archibald  Geikie,  Sir  William  Flower,  Professor 
Metschnikoff,  and  the  composer  Dvorak.  He  and  his 
wife  enjoyed  the  hospitality  of  the  Master  of  Trinity 
and  Mrs.  Butler;  and  among  the  guests  was  Madame 
Albani,  a  charming  woman  as  well  as  a  great  singer, 
who  took  the  leading  part  in  an  oratorio  of  Dvorak's 
which  was  heard  for  the  first  time  during  the  festivities. 
Lecky  much  appreciated  the  honour  of  the  degree  and 
the  very  kind  reception  he  met  with;  but  he  never 
much  liked,  as  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  afterwards, 
'to  stand  up  before  an  audience,  dressed  like  the 
Scarlet  Lady,'  and  to  hear  a  long  speech  about  his 
own  merits,  even  though,  happily,  in  a  tongue  which 
was  not  generally  understood. 


26G  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

The  day  of  his  return  to  London  he  attended  the 
yearly  Trinity  College  Dublin  dinner,  which  was  given 
this  time  in  the  Middle  Temple  Hall.  Lord  Ashbourne 
presided,  and  Lecky  had  to  propose  the  Houses  of 
Parliament,  to  which  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin  and 
Mr.  Plunket  (now  Lord  Rathmore,  who  was  then  M.P. 
for  Dublin  University  and  First  Commissioner  of 
Works)  responded.  Three  Gold  Medallists  of  the  old 
Historical  Society  were  thus  brought  together  once 
more,  and  their  meeting  on  this  occasion  revived  many 
old  memories.  'I  will  not  resist,'  wrote  Mr.  Plunket 
to  Lecky  next  day,  'to  write  you  one  little  line  to  tell 
you  how  thoroughly  I  enjoyed  your  most  charming 
speech  yesterday  evening  —  so  eloquent,  so  graceful, 
and  in  such  perfect  good  taste.  It  was  to  me  like  a 
very  pleasant  whiff  of  fresh  air  from  the  far-off  hills 
of  our  old  friendship  —  a  friendship  which  I  am  glad 
to  know  holds  fast  and  firmly.' 

Being  more  free  in  his  movements  after  the  '  History ' 
was  finished,  Lecky  took  various  journeys  during  the 
year.  In  the  spring  he  and  his  wife  made  an  excursion 
to  the  chateaux  of  the  Loire,  some  of  which,  besides 
their  great  historic  and  architectural  interest,  are  very 
picturesquely  situated  in  small  but  pretty  grounds. 
They  spent  part  of  the  summer  in  Ireland,  paying  on 
the  way  a  visit  to  their  old  friend  Lady  Stanley  of 
Alderley  at  Penrhos,  near  Holyhead,  a  charming  place 
with  beautiful  gardens.  As  Lecky  had  no  researches 
to  make  in  Ireland  on  this  occasion,  he  and  his  wife 
travelled  about  a  good  deal.  They  visited  their  friends ; 
they  went  along  the  west  coast,  stayed  some  days 
at   Mrs.  Blake's^   hotel  at  Renvyle,  and   made  many 


1  Mrs.  Blake,  who  belonged  to  a  good  old  Irish  family,  had 
turned  her  house  into  a  hotel  in  consequence  of  the  land  troubles. 


POEMS  267 

pleasant  excursions  in  the  beautiful  surrounding 
country. 

From  Ireland  they  went  to  Holland,  and  afterwards 
to  the  Italian  lakes  —  Locarno,  Pallanza,  and  Bellaggio 
—  but  the  season  being  too  far  advanced  for  the  lakes, 
they  went  for  sunshine  to  Monte  Carlo,  staying  at 
Bergamo  and  Milan  on  the  way. 

'I  had  not  before,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  'stopped 
at  Monte  Carlo  (which  is  but  just  opening  and  very- 
quiet),  but  it  is  a  place  with  wonderful  attractions  to 
anyone  who,  like  us,  is  not  addicted  to  gambling: 
lovely  climate  and  scenery,  excellent  hotels,  music, 
reading  rooms,  &c.  Next  week  we  start  for  fogs  and 
the  other  charms  of  London,  where  we  shall  probably 
be  on  the  16th,  and  where,  I  hope,  we  shall  not  stir 
for  a  long  time.' 

In  the  autumn  of  1891  Lecky  brought  out  a  small 
volume  of  poetry  which  he  had  written  at  different 
times.  It  is  generally  acknowledged  that  when  a  man 
has  attained  eminence  in  one  field,  any  attempt  on 
his  part  to  strike  out  another  line  is  jealously  watched 
and  severely  criticised.  This  was  the  case  when  Lecky 
published  his  Poems.  Some  of  the  reviewers  were 
very  amiable  and  appreciative;  many  were  hyper- 
critical. The  chief  fault  found  with  the  poems  was  that 
they  were  old-fashioned;  but  if  they  did  not  suit  the 
taste  of  the  younger  generation,  they  found  more 
favour  with  the  older  one.  Mr.  Locker- Lampson  *  and 
Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere-  both  expressed  their  appreciation. 
The  former  wrote  that,  remembering  the  pleasure  he 


'  Mr.  Locker-Lampson  pub-  Legends   of  the   Saxon   Saints 

lished  the  Lyra  Elegantiarum  and    many    other    poems,    as 

and  other  books.  well  as  essays. 
-  Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere  wrote 


268  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

had  derived  from  'An  Old  Song/  he  had  hastened  to 
secure  a  copy  of  the  poems;  that  they  took  his  fancy 
and  quite  suited  his  taste.  '  They  are  short  and  lucid, 
simple  in  language,  and  sincere  in  spirit.  .  .  singularly 
unlike  the  poetry  of  the  present  day,  with  its  straining 
after  originality  of  thought  and  expression.'  Friends 
who  knew  how  reserved  Lecky  was  by  nature  welcomed 
the  poems  as  the  expression  of  his  more  intimate  self. 
'  I  am  very  glad,'  wrote  Sir  Alfred  Lyall,  who  had  read 
them  with  'great  interest  and  sympathy,'  'that  you 
have  let  us  all  have  in  this  form  some  of  the  inner 
thoughts,  impressions  and  reminiscences  gathered 
during  the  journey  thus  far  through  the  "varied  scenes 
of  life.'" 

There  were  some  who  thought  that  the  poems  were 
too  melancholy;  but  Lecky's  explanation  was  that  they 
were  written  much  more  in  melancholy  than  in  happy 
moments,  and  therefore  gave  a  disproportionately 
gloomy  impression.  Poetry,  he  said,  lent  itself  much 
more  naturally  to  the  shade  than  to  the  sunlight,  and 
he  could  not  write  in  verse  as  he  could  in  prose  in  such 
a  mood  as  he  wished.  In  the  course  of  time  he  received 
requests  from  various  quarters  to  allow  some  of  the 
verses  to  be  included  in  anthologies  or  set  to  music. 
Sir  George  Scharf,  the  Director  of  the  National  Por- 
trait Gallery,  was  so  pleased  with  Lecky's  poem  on 
the  subject  of  the  Gallery  and  with  'the  noble  manner' 
in  which  it  was  treated,  that  he  asked  permission  to 
insert  a  few  lines  from  it  among  the  quotations  in  the 
preface  of  the  Catalogue.  He  had  desired  for  some 
time  past  that  Lecky  should  be  a  member  of  the  Board 
of  Trustees,  but  respected  his  wish  not  to  accept  any 
appointment  from  a  laberal  Government  (although, 
of  course,  this  was  purely  honorary).  It  was  not  till 
1895,  after  Sir  George  Scharf's  death,  and  when  Mr. 


BEGINS   'democracy   AND   LIBERTY'  269 

Lionel  Cust  succeeded  him,  that  Lecky  became  a 
trustee. 

On  his  return  to  London  in  the  middle  of  November, 
Lecky  had  his  first  bad  attack  of  influenza,  which  pros- 
trated him  for  some  three  weeks.  The  '  Memoires  du 
General  Marbot'  was  one  of  the  books  which  helped 
him  to  while  away  some  weary  hours  of  inevitable 
weakness  and  depression  when  he  could  do  no  work.  He 
went  to  Brighton,  where  he  got  somewhat  stronger,  but 
it  was  some  months  before  he  was  quite  himself  again. 

'I  was  shut  up  in  the  house  in  London  for  three 
weeks,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  from  Brighton,  Decem- 
ber 11,  'but  got  down  here  last  Wednesday  and  am 
getting  on  very  well,  though  still  leading  an  invalid 
life  and  obliged  to  condescend  to  the  ignominy  of  a 
bath-chair.' 

The  proof-sheets  of  the  cabinet  edition  occupied  his 
time  that  winter,  and  he  also  began  a  new  book  on  politi- 
cal and  social  subjects  about  which  he  had  thought  a 
great  deal  —  afterwards  published  under  the  title  of 
'Democracy  and  Liberty.'  The  cabinet  edition  of 
the  History  came  out  volume  by  volume,  and  before  the 
second  appeared  a  new  edition  was  required  of  the 
first. 

'They  originally  printed  1500  copies,'  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Booth,  February  12,  1892,  'but  have  already  had 
to  give  orders  for  1000  more,  which,  for  a  book  that 
has  been  so  long  before  the  public  and  according  to 
the  moderate  measure  of  my  popularity,  is  doing  very 
well  indeed.  I  am  going  all  over  the  proof-sheets 
again,  and  have  given  an  immense  amount  of  time  and 
trouble  to  making  it  as  good  as  I  can.  I  am  also 
gradually  launching  on  something  else  which  will,  I 
hope,  some  day  take  a  definite  form,  and  will  at  least 
give  me  occupation.' 


270  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

After  the  death  of  Mr.  Freeman  in  the  spring  of 
1892,  Lord  Salisbury,  with  the  authorisation  of  Queen 
Victoria,  offered  him,  in  very  kind  and  flattering  terms, 
the  Regius  Professorship  of  History  at  Oxford.  Hon- 
oured as  he  felt  by  the  distinction,  and  tempting  though 
it  was  in  many  ways,  he  decided,  however,  not  to 
accept  it.  He  did  not  believe,  as  he  wrote  to  Lord 
Salisbury,  that  he  had  any  aptitude  or  vocation  for 
lecturing  and  other  academic  duties;  and  he  felt  con- 
vinced that  what  little  good  he  could  do  (even  for 
University  students)  would  be  best  done  by  keeping 
steadily  to  his  own  line  of  work. 

Among  the  many  public  institutions  in  which  Lecky 
was  interested  the  Royal  Literary  Fund  occupied  a 
foremost  place.  It  gave  relief  to  authors  of  undoubted 
merit  whose  works  were  unremunerative  or  who  had 
suffered  from  reverses  or  ill-health,  and  to  their  widows 
and  children.  Lord  Derby  had  been  its  president 
since  1876,  and  Lecky  was  one  of  its  vice-presidents 
and  a  member  of  the  committee.  The  yearly  dinner 
was  a  great  source  of  revenue  to  the  Fund,  and  much 
trouble  was  always  taken  to  secure  a  chairman  whose 
name  and  personality  appealed  to  a  literary  public. 
In  the  spring  of  1892  Lord  Kelvin  had  consented  to 
occupy  the  chair,  but  unfortunately  at  the  last  moment 
he  was  prevented  from  doing  so  by  a  family  bereave- 
ment. Lecky  was  urgently  asked  by  the  president  to 
fill  his  place,  and  though  he  had  but  a  day's  notice, 
he  felt  it  his  duty  to  do  so.  It  involved  making  the 
speech  of  the  evening,  besides  various  shorter  ones. 
His  great  gift  of  speaking  enabled  him  to  acquit  him- 
self of  the  task  to  everyone's  satisfaction. 

Lord  Derby,  whose  failing  health  had  prevented 
him  from  attending,  afterwards  sent  him  the  resolu- 
tion passed  by  the  committee,  adding,  'Never  was  a 


LETTERS   ON    HOME    RULE  271 

vote  of  thanks  better  earned,  and  the  committee  will 
not  soon  forget  the  service  you  rendered  them  at  a 
moment  of  difficulty.  It  is  not  everyone  who  either 
would  or  could  undertake  a  speech  of  that  kind  at  a 
few  hours'  notice.'  Lord  Derby  always  maintained 
that  Lecky  was  one  of  the  best  after-dinner  speakers 
he  knew,  and  he  regretted  not  being  able  to  hear  him 
on  this  occasion. 

During  the  summer  of  1892  the  General  Election 
absorbed  all  atention,  and  the  spectre  of  Home  Rule 
was  again  within  sight.  Conventions  were  held  in 
the  great  centres  of  Ireland  —  first  at  Belfast,  then  in 
Dublin.  Lecky  was  once  more  called  upon  to  take 
his  share  in  fighting  the  battle  of  the  Union.  Not 
being  able  to  go  to  the  Dublin  Convention  on  June 
23,  he  was  asked  to  write  a  letter  which  might  be  read 
at  the  meeting  and  published.  In  it  he  reviewed  all 
that  the  Unionist  Government  had  done  in  six  years; 
how  it  had  not  only  raised  Ireland  from  a  condition 
of  disgraceful  anarchy  to  prosperity  and  peace,  but 
how  also  it  had  earned  the  confidence  of  the  nation 
by  its  conduct  of  foreign  affairs,  by  its  restoration  of 
the  Navy  to  its  old  efficiency,  by  its  administration  of 
finance,  and  by  the  many  important  measures  it  had 
carried. 

'  But  the  chief  of  all  its  merits  is  that  it  has  defeated 
a  great  crime  and  averted  a  great  calamity.  When 
the  glamour  of  party  rhetoric  shall  have  passed  away, 
history  will  have  little  difficulty  in  estimating  the 
character  of  the  English  statesman  who  .  .  .  delib- 
erately attempted  to  place  the  government  of  an 
integral  part  of  the  Empire  in  the  hands  of  men  whom 
he  had  himself  denounced  in  the  strongest  language 
as  both  dishonest  and  disloyal.  After  the  overwhelm- 
ing evidence  collected  by  the  Parnell  Commissioners, 


272  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

and  after  the  sentence  of  the  Judges,  it  is  impossible  for 
any  candid  man  to  doubt  that  the  Parnellite  movement 
was  essentially  a  treasonable  conspiracy,  promoting  its 
ends  by  calculated  fraud,  violence  and  lawlessness, 
by  an  amount  of  cruelty  and  oppression  seldom  equalled 
in  modern  times,  by  constant  and  systematic  appeals 
to  the  worst  passions  of  the  Irish  people.  No  respect- 
able Government  ever  was  or  ever  will  be  founded  on 
such  methods.  Any  attempt  to  place  such  men  at 
the  head  of  Irish  affairs  would,  in  my  opinion,  only 
lead  to  widespread  anarchy  and  ruin,  very  possibly  to 
Civil  War  and  Separation.' 

He  received  the  '  heartiest  thanks '  of  the  committee 
of  the  Southern  Unionist  Convention  for  the  '  admirable 
letter'  he  had  written. 

'  It  produced  a  great  effect  at  the  Convention,'  wrote 
Professor  Dowden,  who  did  so  much  himself  for  the 
Unionist  cause,  '  and,  what  is  more  important,  it  has 
been  reprinted  in  all  the  most  important  papers  and 
will  produce  an  effect  we  cannot  doubt  on  thoughtful 
readers  among  the  English  and  Scotch  electorate. 
None  of  us  can  remember  any  meeting  in  Dublin  at 
all  approaching  that  of  last  Thursday  in  importance. 
Both  the  Leinster  Hall  and  the  large  annexe  were  filled 
with  chosen  delegates  from  every  constituency  outside 
Ulster.  The  arrangements  were  excellent,  there  was 
no  confusion,  and  there  was  entire  unanimity  of  feel- 
ing. The  deputation  from  Ulster  (including  the  Lord 
Mayor  of  Belfast  and  the  Mayor  of  Derry)  was  received 
with  great  enthusiasm,  and  as  the  best  effect  of  the 
Convention,  the  loyalty  of  North  to  South  and  of 
South  to  North  was  assured  for  the  future.  It  will  be 
impossible  to  separate  us  now.' 

He  was  asked  to  write  a  letter  for  the  Scotsman,  and 
he  clearly  and  emphatically  explained  the  whole  situ- 
ation to  Scotch  electors,  warning  them  of  all  that  Mr. 


THE   ELECTION   OF   1892  273 

Gladstone's  Home  Rule  policy  would  involve.  '  Scotch 
Liberal  Unionists  and  Conservative  candidates  owe  you 
their  best  thanks,'  wrote  a  prominent  Unionist,  Mr, 
Arthur  Elliot,  'for  the  excellent  letter  appearing  in 
to-day's  Scotsman}  Appearing  in  the  same  paper  as 
Mr.  Gladstone's  Glasgow  speech  it  comes  in  admirably.' 
He  had  also  once  more  to  make  it  clear  in  a  letter  to 
the  Times'^  that  passages  from  a  chapter  in  his  early 
'  Leaders '  which  had  been  suppressed  in  the  edition 
of  1871,  and  which  Mr.  Gladstone  had  used  in  his 
Clapham  speech,  had  no  application  to  the  present 
situation.  It  was  a  powerful  letter,  containing,  as 
one  friend  wrote,  'more  than  five  hundred  speeches 
put  together  by  previous  speakers.' 

It  was  not  a  question,  wrote  Lecky,  between  Pro- 
testant and  Catholic.  'It  is  a  question  between  hon- 
esty and  dishonesty,  between  loyalty  and  treason, 
between  individual  freedom  and  organised  outrage 
and  tyranny;'  and  he  illustrated  this  with  a  picture 
of  the  state  of  the  country,  and  referred  to  the  great 
demonstration  in  Ulster  which  seemed  'likely  to  form 
one  of  the  great  landmarks  in  Irish  history.  Nothing 
approaching  it  has  been  seen  there  since  the  Volun- 
teer Convention  of  1782.'  'Bravo!  Bravo!'  wrote 
Professor  Tyndall,  in  his  usual  enthusiastic  way.  'A 
thousand  times.  Bravo!' 

The  elections  brought  in  the  Liberals  with  a  small 
majority,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  —  who  was  now  eighty- 
three  —  saw  one  more  opportunity  of  bringing  forward 
his  Irish  policy. 

Lecky  was  asked  to  write  an  article  on  the  results 
of  the  elections  for  the  Fortnightly  Revieio  of  August. 
It  came  out  as  one  of  a  series  by  various  politicians 


The  Scotsman,  July  4,  1892.       ^  The  Times,  June  21,  1892. 
19 


274  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

under  the  heading  of  'The  Political  Outlook.'  He 
showed  that  Mr.  Gladstone's  majority  was  certainly 
not  due  to  the  conversion  of  the  nation  to  Home  Rule; 
that  the  great  Unionist  triumphs  at  Dublin  and  Belfast 
had  been  profoundly  significant,  and  the  immense 
reduction  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  own  majority  proved  how 
little  enthusiasm  was  felt  among  the  electors  for  the 
measure  with  which  he  was  specially  identified.  But 
although  a  Home  Rule  Bill  was  not  likely  to  pass,  the 
accession  of  a  Home  Rule  Government  might  inflict 
great  injury  on  Ireland  by  shaking  the  sense  of  security 
which  she  needed  above  all  things  and  by  giving  fresh 
encouragement  to  the  elements  of  disorder. 

'Gladstone's  majority,'  wrote  one  of  the  greatest 
military  authorities  to  Lecky  on  July  18,  '  means  Mr. 
in  Ireland,  and  that  means  the  complete  demoral- 
isation of  the  Constabulary.' 

The  vicissitudes  of  politics  did  not  interfere  with 
the  regard  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  had  always  shown 
for  Lecky,  and  whenever  he  published  a  book  he  gave 
him  a  copy.  That  summer  he  sent  him  a  pamphlet 
on  a  New  Constitution  for  Ireland  and  his  'Conversa- 
tions with  Carlyle.'  In  acknowledging  the  former, 
Lecky  wrote  that  as  a  matter  of  machinery  he  thought 
the  scheme  could  hardly  be  greatly  improved  on,  and 
that  he  was  ready  to  admit  that  if  it  was  worked  by 
men  of  the  same  stamp  as  himself  [Sir  Charles  Gavan 
Duffyl  it  would  probably  succeed.  But  that  as  to 
the  practicability  of  safely  entrusting  the  men  who  had 
obtained  the  leadership  of  Irish  popular  politics,  and 
who  would  undoubtedly  direct  a  Home  Rule  Parlia- 
ment, with  the  maintenance  of  law  and  order,  property 
and  contract,  and  individual  freedom,  they  must  agree 
to  differ.  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  wrote  that  he  was 
much  gratified  by  Mr.  Lecky's  recognition  of  the  fact 


SIR    CHARLES    GAVAN    DUFFY  275 

that  he  did  all  he  could  to  frame  an  Irish  Constitution 
designed  to  be  just  to  every  class  of  Irishmen.  'Of 
course  I  understand,'  he  added,  'why  you  think  it 
would  fail,  and  if  I  had  the  making  of  the  men  you 
would  probably  have  nothing  to  complain  of.'  To 
Lecky  the  Home  Rule  question  was  essentially,  as 
he  more  than  once  said,  a  question  of  confidence  in 
the  men  who  would  be  placed  in  power.  '  If  Irish 
opinion,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  in  1886,  'followed 
property  and  responsibility,  I  should  not  have  the 
least  objection  to  Home  Rule  in  moderation;  and  I 
always  think  that  the  old  Parliament  of  the  gentle- 
men of  Ireland  deserves  much  more  credit  than  it  has 
received.'  In  acknowledging  Sir  C.  Gavan  Duffy's 
'Conversations  with  Carlyle,'  Lecky  wrote,  June  2, 
1892: 

'  Although  you  told  me  that  I  must  not  do  so,  I 
must  write  a  line  to  thank  you  very  sincerely  for  your 
new  book  which  I  have  been  reading  again  with  keen 
interest.  It  brings  back  a  flood  of  recollections  to 
me.  I  have  often  heard  Carlyle  talk  of  you  "and  always 
with  kindness.  The  last  year  or  eighteen  months  of 
his  life  was  very  sad  —  a  period  of  extreme  bodily  and 
mental  weakness.  I  used  to  drive  with  him  regularly 
once  a  week,  chiefly  to  light  his  pipe  and  lift  to  his  lips 
a  tonic  which  he  had  to  take  —  as  he  could  do  neither 
himself,  and  he  used  to  sink  into  long  unbroken  silences. 
He  was  still,  however,  able  to  take  in  a  Uttle  reading, 
and  just  before  his  last  illness,  I  read  to  him  some  of 
Burns'  letters  —  the  last  book,  I  think,  he  tried  to 
read.^  Both  my  wife  and  I  saw  him  when  very  near 
the  end,  and  again  when  all  was  over,  and  I  was  one 


'  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  Carlyle's  latter  days  in  the 
asked  leave  to  introduce  next  edition  of  the  Conversa- 
Lecky's    'grapliic    picture'  of      tions. 


276  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

of  three  who  went  up  to  his  funeral  at  Ecclefechan.  I 
must  thank  you  also  for  your  kind  letter.  I  am  glad  that 
you  can  at  least  understand  my  point  of  view,  and 
that  Irish  politics  —  which  have  a  peculiar  power  to 
sunder  and  to  acidulate  —  have  not  extinguished  your 
kind  feeUng  about  me.' 

Early  in  July,  while  the  elections  were  going  on.  Trin- 
ity College  Dublin  celebrated  its  Tercentenary,  and 
Lecky  was  invited  to  take  part  in  it.  He  and  his  wife 
were  the  guests  of  Lord  and  Lady  Wolseley  at  the 
Royal  Hospital,  where  Lord  and  Lady  Dufferin  and  Sir 
Alfred  Lyall  were  also  staying.  On  the  first  day  — 
July  5  —  all  the  University  members  and  delegates 
walked  in  procession  to  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  where 
a  solemn  service  opened  the  proceedings.  One  of  the 
most  interesting  ceremonies  was  the  presentation  of 
addresses  in  the  Leinster  Hall  by  the  foreign  and  other 
delegates  in  their  various  costumes  —  one  of  them  in 
a  black  gown  and  large  ruff,  who,  though  not  a  Dutch- 
man, might  have  walked  out  of  one  of  Frans  Hals' 
paintings.^  Some  represented  ancient  and  venerable 
universities,  such  as  that  of  Bologna,  which  had  cele- 
brated its  eighth  centenary,  or  that  of  Leyden,  which 
was  connected  with  the  famous  siege  in  the  Eighty 
Years'  War.  There  were  a  variety  of  entertainments, 
and  a  huge  banquet  in  the  Leinster  Hall  crowned  the 
proceedings.  The  speaking  on  the  occasion  struck 
strangers  as  being  of  a  very  high  order.  The  Master 
of  Trinity,  Cambridge,  proposed  the  toast  of  Trinity 
College,  coupling  with  it  the  names  of  the  Provost, 
Mr.  Plunket,  M.P.  for  the  University,  and  Lecky. 
The  Provost,  Dr.  Salmon,  made  a  speech  full  of  sub- 
stance, good  sense,  and  humour.     Mr.  Plunket,  in  an 


>  He  was  the  delegate  from  the  University  of  Rostock. 


T.C.D.    CENTENARY  277 

eloquent  speech,  recalled  the  old  college  days  and 
friendships,  and  struck  a  responsive  chord  among  the 
audience  when  he  said  that  many  of  the  distinguished 
men  present  would  no  doubt  gladly  exchange  all  the 
successes  and  triumphs  of  their  later  years  for  the 
happier  and  more  careless  days  of  their  youth,  and 
would  join  heartily  in  the  sentiment  of  their  own  poet, 
Tom  Moore,  who,  he  imagined,  was  looking  back  on 
his  experiences  in  Trinity  College  when  he  sang  in 
those  most  melodious  verses: 

*  Ne'er  tell  me  of  glories  serenely  adorning 

The  close  of  our  day,  the  calm  eve  of  our  night; 
Give  me  back,  give  me  back  the  wild  freshness  of  morning, 
Her  clouds  and  her  tears  are  worth  evening's  best  light.' 

He  made  a  graceful  allusion  to  Lecky,  his  old  friend 
and  contemporary,  whose  triumphs  'as  a  brilliant  and 
faithful  historian  had  not  won  him  away  from  oratory, 
in  which  he  was  no  less  distinguished  at  the  time  when 
they  were  both  competitors  in  the  old  Historical 
Society.' 

Lecky,  in  responding,  spoke  of  the  great  part  Trin- 
ity College  had  played  in  Irish  life,  throwing  open  its 
degrees  to  Roman  Catholics  more  than  sixty  years 
before  the  English  universities,  and  counting  among 
its  pupils  great  men  who  had  distinguished  themselves 
in  the  most  various  walks  of  life  and  held  the  most 
opposite  opinions. 

'  Whatever  its  enemies  may  say  of  it,  it  has  been  the 
University  of  the  Nation,  and  not  merely  of  a  party  or 
sect.  ...  Of  all  our  Irish  institutions,'  he  said  in  his 
peroration,  'I  beheve  Trinity  College  Dublin  is  that 
which  has  divided  us  least  and  has  excited  beyond  its 
borders  and  its  connections  the  least  animosity  and 
the  largest  measure  of  genuine  good-will.     May  the 


278  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

spirit  that  animated  this  University  in  the  past  still 
continue.  Whatever  fate  may  be  in  store  for  us,  what- 
ever new  powers  may  arise,  may  this  University  at 
least  be  true  to  itself.  In  a  country  torn  by  sectarian 
and  political  strife,  may  it  continue  to  bring  together 
in  friendly  competition  students  of  different  creeds 
and  different  poUtical  colours,  and  teach  them  to 
respect  each  other  and  teach  them  to  respect  them- 
selves. In  an  atmosphere  hot  and  feverish  with  over- 
strained rhetoric  and  passionate  exaggerations,  may  it 
continue  the  home  of  sober  thought,  of  serious  study, 
of  impartial  judgment,  of  an  earnest  desire  for  truth, 
building  up  slowly,  steadily  and  laboriously  the  nobler 
and  more  enduring  elements  of  national  life.' 

'  I  am  sorry  you  were  not  at  the  Tercentenary,' 
Lecky  afterwards  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth.  'It  was  a  very 
striking  sight:  the  immense  number  of  universities 
represented;  the  curious  and  brilliant  dresses  (it 
reminded  me  of  the  opening  of  the  General  Council); 
the  great  number  of  remarkable  men  collected  together; 
and  the  admirable  behaviour  of  the  crowd  through 
which  we  had  to  walk  in  procession  from  T.C.D.  to  St. 
Patrick's,  who  never  pressed  or  uttered  a  single 
disobliging  word,  though  it  was  in  the  middle  of  the 
election,  when  strong  passions  might  have  been 
aroused.  There  was  an  enormous  dinner,  in  which  we 
all  appeared  in  our  red  (or  other)  gowns.  The  Pro- 
vost, Plunket,  and  myself  had  to  answer  for  T.C.D., 
and  Plunket's  speech  was  an  extremely  beautiful 
one.' 

That  year  Lecky  began  his  holiday  by  going  to  the 
Italian  Alps,  which  he  had  wished  to  see  for  some  time 
past.  He  drove  from  Bourg  St.  Maurice  to  Cour- 
mayeur  over  the  Little  St.  Bernard,  found  the  pass 
full  of  beauty,  'with  charming  short  cuts  through  fir 
woods  —  crocus-covered  fields  with  a  few  Alp  roses 


TRAVELS  IN  THE   ITALIAN   ALPS  279 

in  bloom,  and  a  few  snow-drifts  still  lying  on  the  road.' 
He  stopped  at  the  top  with  an  interesting  Italian 
party,  and  looked  through  the  library  of  a  curious 
old  priest  who  had  lived  there,  winter  and  summer, 
for  more  than  thirty  years.  He  thought  Courmayeur 
'one  of  the  most  charming  places  in  the  Alps;  the 
beauty  of  Chamounix  without  its  tourist  rush  —  an 
almost  ideal  hotel  —  very  pleasant  society  —  beauti- 
ful short  as  well  as  long  walks.'  He  was  delighted 
with  Gressoney,  but  especially  with  Ponte  Grande 
and  Macugnaga.  'It  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate 
the  grandeur  and  beauty  of  the  scenery  about  here,' 
he  wrote;  and  he  thought  the  air  delightful.  There 
were  no  English,  but  an  intelligent  German  politi- 
cian, with  whom  he  talked  a  great  deal.  When  rain 
came  he  had  his  books  to  fall  back  on  —  Zola's  '  De- 
bacle,' 'a  very  painful  but  very  terrible  story,  none 
of  the  horrors  of  war  being  spared,  and  I  think  its 
influence  will  be  decidedly  for  good.  I  have  been 
comparing  it  with  Erckmann-Chatrian's  "Waterloo," 
which  I  found  here  and  have  read  through.'  He  was 
also  reading  'Le  Gouvernement  dans  la  Democratic,' 
an  important  book  by  the  distinguished  Belgian  writer, 
M.  de  Laveleye,  of  whom  he  had  seen  a  good  deal;  and 
he  was  never  without  a  volume  of  Shakespeare.  He 
went  down  the  Val  d'Anzasca,  had  a  lovely  sail  over 
Lago  Maggiore,  drove  over  the  St.  Gothard,  and  met 
his  wife  at  Innsbruck.*  Together  they  went  to  the 
Dolomites,  which  he  had  never  yet  explored.  He  very 
much  admired  the  soft  beauty  of  the  colouring  com- 
bined with  the  grandeur  of  the  scenery.  They  stayed 
at   San   Martino   di  Castrozza,   a   perfectly  beautiful 


'  The  passages   quoted   are      had   gone    to    Bayrcuth    with 
from  letters  to  his  wife,  who      her  sisters. 


280  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

spot  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Dolomites,  and  they 
were  much  fascinated  by  those  wonderful  jagged  rocks 
which  change  their  colour  almost  like  the  chameleon. 
Tinged  with  a  warm  red  hue  under  sunny  skies,  they 
look  black  and  threatening  in  gloomy  weather,  and 
on  a  clear  night  appear  white,  like  weird  gigantic 
spectres. 

Later  on  they  went  to  Pieve  di  Caclore,  where  Titian 
was  born,  and  where  he  drew  the  inspiration  of  his 
beautiful  backgrounds;  to  Cortina,  Landro,  Nieder- 
dorf,  Botzen,  Meran,  all  centres  of  charming  excur- 
sions. At  Meran  they  saw  a  stirring  representation 
of  the  struggle  led  by  Andreas  Hofer,  in  1809,  for  the 
independence  of  the  Tyrol.  It  was  given  in  the  open 
air,  and  acted  by  the  townspeople  with  great  dramatic 
power  and  with  that  sense  of  measure  which  is  the 
essence  of  all  good  acting. 

The  transition  from  'those  high  sunny  quarters'  to 
the  London  atmosphere  —  '  dim  pale  figures  creeping 
about  through  a  smoky  limbo '  —  was  always  very 
depressing  to  him;  but  he  had  to  be  back  early  in 
October,  as  he  had  promised  to  be  president  of  the 
Birmingham  and  Midland  Institute  for  the  year  and 
to  give  the  Presidential  Address  on  the  10th.  He  chose 
for  his  subject  'The  Political  Value  of  History,'^  treat- 
ing it  in  his  own  philosophic  way  and  showing  in  what 
spirit  history  should  be  studied  to  be  really  useful. 
In  the  course  of  his  address  he  laid  stress  on  the  fact 
that  the  politics  of  the  day  are  too  much  concen- 
trated upon  an  immediate  issue,  taking  no  account 
of  the  possible  ultimate  consequences  of  political 
measures,  which  are  often  far  more  important  than 


^  This    has    been    included    in    the    Historical   and    Political 
Essays. 


DEATH  OF  LORD  TENNYSON         281 

their  immediate  fruits.  '  History  is  never  more  valu- 
able than  when  it  enables  us,  standing  as  on  a 
height,  to  look  beyond  the  smoke  and  turmoil  of 
our  petty  quarrels,  and  to  detect  in  the  slow  devel- 
opments of  the  past  the  great  permanent  forces  that 
are  steadily  bearing  nations  onwards  to  improvement 
or  decay.' 

Birmingham  once  more  interested  him  greatly  by 
its  wonderful  corporate  spirit  —  stronger,  he  thought, 
than  in  any  other  English  town  —  and  its  admirable 
public  institutions. 

No  sooner  had  he  returned  to  London  than  he  was 
called  upon  to  attend  the  funeral  of  Lord  Tennyson 
as  pall-bearer.  The  loss  of  friend  after  friend  is  one 
of  the  severest  penalties  of  increasing  years,  and  within 
the  last  few  months  Lecky  had  lost  many  whom  he 
valued:  Lord  Arthur  Russell,  Sir  William  Gregory, 
Sir  Lewis  Pelly,  Mr.  Henry  Doyle,  and  now  Lord 
Tennyson.  His  'was  a  very  happy  and  easy  end,' 
wrote  Lecky,  'to  a  long  and  glorious  life,'  and  the 
funeral  at  Westminster  Abbey  struck  him  as  less 
sombre  than  usual,  partly  from  a  Union  Jack  taking 
the  place  of  the  pall.  When  the  present  Lord  Tenny- 
son asked  him,  in  the  following  spring,  to  contribute 
some  pages  of  reminiscences  to  the  Life  he  was  writing 
of  his  father,  Lecky  readily  did  so.  '  Very  best  thanks,' 
wrote  Lord  Tennyson,  'for  your  admirably  true  letter. 
It  will  be  very  valuable  for  future  generations  as  well 
as  for  this.' 

In  November  1892  he  finished  the  revision  of  the 
'History'  for  the  cabinet  edition,  to  which  he  had 
devoted  much  time  and  care.  'I  have  finished  the 
long  task  of  my  cabinet  edition,'  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Booth  at  the  end  of  November,  'and  the  final  volume 
will  appear  in  about  a  fortnight.     I  think  the  separa- 


282  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

tion  of  the  Irish  from  the  English  part  has  been  a 
great  improvement,  and  that  the  book  as  a  whole 
is  more  accurate.  It  has  been  a  long  business,  but  it 
is  worth  while  getting  one's  books  as  perfect  as  one 
can.' 


CHAPTER  XI 

1892-1894. 

'Thoughts  on  History'  —  Home  Rule  Bill,  1893  —  Articles  on 
Home  Rule  —  Carrigart  —  Letter  on  the  situation  —  Albert 
Hall  meeting  —  Irish  delegates  at  Hatfield  —  Death  of 
Lord  Derby  —  Defeat  of  Home  Rule  Bill  —  President  of 
the  Cheltonian  Society  —  Vosbergen  —  Mr.  Rhodes'  '  His- 
tory '  — '  Israel  among  the  Nations '  —  '  The  Eye  of  the 
Grey  Monk '  —  Death  of  Sir  Andrew  Clark  —  Lecture  at 
the  Imperial  Institute  —  Pessimism  —  French  Institute  — 
Memoir  of  Lord  Derby  —  Due  d'Aumale  —  Resignation  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  —  Lord  Rosebery  succeeds  —  Madonna  di 
Campiglio  —  Mr.  Froude's  death  —  Tribute  to  Lord  Rus- 
sell —  Canada  and  Copyright. 

In  the  winter  Lecky  worked  at  his  new  book,  and  he 
wrote  for  the  Forum  an  article,  which  appeared  in 
February  1893,  under  the  title  of  'The  Art  of  Writing 
History'*  and  in  which  he  expatiated  on  the  various 
methods  of  writing  history. 

The  Liberal  Government  had  initiated  their  Irish 
policy  by  appointing  a  Commission  to  inquire  into  the 
case  of  the  evicted  tenants,  and  an  English  judge  — 
an  Irishman  by  birth  —  whose  Home  Rule  proclivi- 
ties were  well  known,  was  selected  to  preside  over  it. 
The  judge  did  not  conceal  his  political  bias;  and  the 
Commission   proved    a   fiasco.     Lecky,    who   was   on 


1  Published  in  the  Historical  and  Political  Essays  as  '  Thoughts 
on  History,'  the  title  he  had  first  selected. 

283 


284  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

friendly  terms  with  this  judge,  happened  to  meet  him 
at  the  Athenseum  on  his  return  from  Ireland.  'So 
you  have  come  to  resume  your  judicial  character/ 
said  Lecky.  'Yes/  replied  the  Judge,  'unless  I  have 
left  it  behind  me;'  whereupon  Lecky  rejoined,  'No 
one  could  accuse  you  of  that!' 

Mr.  Gladstone's  Home  Rule  Bill  was  brought  in 
early  in  the  session  of  1893,  and  obliged  Unionists  in 
and  out  of  Parliament  to  continue  their  strenuous 
opposition  and  keep  the  country  informed  of  the 
dangers  of  such  a  measure. 

Lecky  wrote,  at  the  request  of  various  people,  some 
short  articles  on  Home  Rule  from  different  points  of 
view;  one  appeared  in  the  National  Observer  of  March 
4,  1893,  under  the  heading  'Lights  on  Home  Rule'; 
another,  'The  Case  against  Home  Rule  from  an  His- 
torical Point  of  View,'  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  of  July 
24.  Both  were  republished  in  pamphlet  form,  with 
letters  and  papers  by  other  prominent  Liberal  Union- 
ists. The  most  important  of  Lecky's  contributions  was 
an  article  in  the  Contemporary  Review  of  May  1893, 
'  Some  Aspects  of  Home  Rule.'  The  Bill,  he  thought, 
was  in  some  respects  even  more  unworkable  than  the 
previous  one,  and  it  was  certainly  worse  for  the  land- 
owners. While  the  Bill  of  1886  was  at  least  combined 
with  a  scheme  for  settling  the  land  question,  in  the 
present  Bill  there  was  'not  a  single  guarantee  of  the 
smallest  value  for  the  protection  of  landed  property.' 

'The  profound  dishonesty  of  this  legislation  is 
sufficiently  clear,'  wrote  Lecky  in  the  Contemporary 
Review,  '  and  it  is  certainly  not  surprising  that  the 
whole  body  of  the  Irish  landlords,  both  Catholic  and 
Protestant,  are  arrayed  against  it.  Few  incidents  in 
the  present  controversy  have  been  more  striking 
than   the   powerful   and   touching   manifesto    against 


IRELAND   IX    1893  285 

Mr.  Gladstone's  policy  which  was  issued  by  the  lead- 
ing Catholic  gentry  of  Ireland.  Most  of  these  have 
been  lifelong  Liberals.  Nearly  all  have  been  con- 
stant residents  in  Ireland.  Many  of  them  bear  names 
that  have  been  conspicuous  in  dark  and  evil  days 
for  the  purest  and  most  self-sacrificing  patriotism,  and 
the  son  of  O'Connell  and  the  grandson  of  Grattan  are 
among  them.' 

At  Easter  he  took  a  short  holiday  in  the  West  of 
Ireland;  he  stayed  at  Carrigart,  where  the  Rosapenna 
Hotel  had  just  been  opened,  and  he  delighted  once 
more  in  the  '  most  magnificent  cliff  scenery  in  enchant- 
ingly  beautiful  weather.'  From  Carrigart  he  wrote  to 
his  American  correspondent,  Mr.  Lea,  about  the  condi- 
tion in  which  he  found  Ireland  at  the  time: 

'  I  am  afraid  that  I  have  been  a  very  long  time  in 
thanking  you  for  your  last  kind  and  interesting  letter, 
and  I  avail  myself  of  a  short  holiday  which  I  am  taking 
in  your  neighbourhood  —  for  at  this  extreme  west  of 
Ireland  there  is  nothing  but  the  Atlantic  between  us 
—  to  do  so.  I  am  extremely  interested  in  the  account 
you  give  me  of  your  work,  and  full  of  admiration  for 
the  courage  that  can  alone  enable  you  to  grapple  with 
such  a  vast  mass  of  material  as  lies  before  you.  I 
think  we  have  here  in  Ireland  one  of  the  most  striking 
instances  I  know  of  the  extent  to  which  Catholic  ascen- 
dancy can  go.  Two  very  interesting  election  trials 
which  lately  took  place  show  clearly  what  terrible 
spiritual  threats  are  habitually  employed  for  election- 
eering purposes,  that  not  only  the  pulpit  and  the 
altar,  but  even  the  confessional,  is  made  use  of  for 
those  purposes.  A  return  has  just  been  published 
showing  that  at  the  last  General  Election  in  Ireland 
the  illiterates  (who  profess  to  be  unable  to  read  the 
names  on  the  ballot  paper)  were  more  than  one  in  five. 
We  have  had  what  is  considered  an  excellent  system 
of  national  education  since  1831  —  many  years  before 


286  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

England  possessed  such  a  thing  —  and  in  Great  Brit- 
ain the  proportion  of  illiterate  voters  is  about  one  in 
a  hundred.  It  is  well  known  that  numbers  of  these 
Irish  electors  are  not  illiterate,  but  are  compelled  to 
declare  themselves  so  in  order  that  they  should  vote 
through  their  priests  and  that  there  should  be  no 
possibility  of  evasion.  The  intimidation  which  those 
substantial  farmers  who  dread  Home  Rule  (no  small 
number)  undergo  can  hardly  be  exaggerated.  Only 
a  few  days  ago  a  gentleman  who  mixes  much  with  them 
told  me  that  again  and  again  numbers  of  this  class 
have  said  to  him,  "  We  dread  this  Home  Rule  as  much 
as  you  do  —  but  what  can  we  do?  If  we  signed  a  peti- 
tion against  it  we  could  not  appear  at  the  chapel,  and 
in  the  market  no  one  would  be  allowed  to  buy  from 
us."  In  the  meantime,  in  order  to  sustain  the  move- 
ment, the  hope  is  constantly  held  out  that  Home  Rule 
will  give  the  people  the  land  for  nothing  or  at  some 
ridiculously  low  price.  All  contracts  in  land  in  Ire- 
land having  been  already  more  than  once  broken  by 
the  Imperial  Parliament,  the  idea  has  rapidly  spread 
that  under  an  Irish  Parhament  the  last  vestiges  of 
agrarian  contracts  would  disappear,  and  it  is  at  least 
certain  that  the  whole  police  force  would  pass  into  the 
hands  of  men  who  have  been  the  authors  of  the  "  No 
Rent"  movement  —  of  the  "  Plan  of  Campaign"  and 
of  all  the  violence  and  fraud  that  have  prevailed  in 
Ireland  during  the  last  few  years. 

'  I  suppose  there  never  was  a  time  when  the  oppo- 
sition between  numbers  on  the  one  side,  and  intelli- 
gence, property  and  industry  on  the  other  was  so 
marked.  The  whole  body  of  the  Protestants  of  all 
denominations,  all  the  Catholic  as  well  as  all  the  Pro- 
testant gentry,  and  at  least  99  in  100  of  the  men  who 
take  any  leading  part  in  manufactures,  trade,  and 
other  forms  of  finance  and  industry,  think  that  Home 
Rule  such  as  Mr.  Gladstone  proposes  would  ruin  Ire- 
land.    All  the  chief  Irish  securities  have  fallen  in  a 


HOME   RULE   BILL   OF   1893  287 

panic.  Mortgages  are  being  called  in.  Trade  orders 
are  suspended,  and  a  steady  drain  of  capital  from  the 
country  is  taking  place.  At  the  same  time  the  six 
Ulster  counties,  which  form  incomparably  the  richest, 
the  most  industrious  and  the  most  resolute  portion  of 
Ireland,  are  at  fever  point;  the  people  there  are,  I 
believe,  thoroughly  armed;  they  are  rapidly  organising, 
and  they  declare  with  the  greatest  emphasis  (and  I, 
at  least,  believe  them)  that  they  will  never  pay  taxes 
or  yield  obedience  to  a  Parliament  under  the  guidance 

of  such  men  as .     This  year  the  Bill  cannot  pass 

—  if  it  does  not  break  down  in  Committee  it  will  be 
thrown  out  by  the  Lords,  and  there  are  many  chances 
that  Mr.  Gladstone's  small  majority  will  break  up. 
But  the  immense  proportion  of  perfectly  ignorant  men 
in  our  electorate  makes  all  political  calculation  for 
the  future  chimerical,  and  the  growing  habit  of  bribing 
classes  by  great  offers  is  very  marked.  Unfortunately 
we  have  not  your  Constitution,  and  a  simple  majority 
may  pull  the  whole  Constitution  to  pieces.  Excuse 
all  this  politics  —  of  course,  the  subject  is  one  of  which 
we  are  very  full.  .  .  . 

*I  was  greatly  pleased  with  the  poem  on  Drake 
which  your  illustrious  fellow-citizen.  Dr.  .  Mitchell, 
was  so  kind  as  to  send  me.  A  charming  book  full  of 
political  wisdom  has  just  come  out,  which  ought  spe- 
cially to  appeal  to  Americans  —  the  "  Souvenirs  de 
Tocqueville."  I  am  myself  duly  launched  on  a  new 
book,  but  it  has  not  yet  taken  very  definite  form,  and 
will  probably  occupy  me  for  nearly  three  years.  I  do 
not  mean  it  to  be  more  than  two  moderate  volumes. 
At  fifty-five  one  has  already  passed  the  age  at  which 
Dante  says  one  should  begin  to  draw  in  sail.' 

The  debates  on  the  second  reading  of  the  Home  Rule 
Bill  began  early  in  April  1893.  Meanwhile  some  1200 
delegates  came  over  from  all  parts  of  Ireland  to  protest 
against  it. 


288  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

On  April  22,  the  very  day  the  second  reading  had 
been  passed  by  the  normal  small  Liberal  majority  in 
the  early  hours  of  the  morning,  an  important  meeting 
was  held  at  the  Albert  Hall.  About  11,000  people 
attended,  and  the  Duke  of  Abercorn,  who  presided, 
the  Bishop  of  Derry  —  now  the  Primate  —  and  other 
Irishmen  upheld  the  cause  of  the  Union  with  the  great- 
est earnestness.  Two  days  later  a  memorable  recep- 
tion was  given  to  the  delegates  at  Hatfield.  It  was 
favoured  by  lovely  summer-like  weather,  and  the 
beauty  of  the  place,  the  hospitality  dispensed,  and  the 
fine  oratory  were  worthy  of  the  occasion.  Stirring 
speeches  were  made  from  the  steps  in  the  quadrangle 
by  the  great  Unionist  leaders  —  liOrd  Salisbury,  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire,  Mr.  Balfour,  Mr.  Chamberlain, 
and  Mr.  Goschen.  Sir  Thomas  Butler  spoke  on  behalf 
of  the  Irish  Unionist  Alliance.  From  those  venerable 
walls,  where  history  has  been  made  ever  since  the  days 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  Irish  Unionists  carried  away  the 
solemn  promise  that  England  never  would  abandon 
them.  The  speeches  were  received  with  the  utmost 
enthusiasm,  and  the  meeting  left  an  impression  which 
no  one  who  attended  it  could  ever  forget.  Most  of 
the  distinguished  men  who  were  present  on  that  occa- 
sion have  passed  away  from  the  scene,  but  the  record 
of  all  they  did  to  maintain  the  Union  remains  as  an 
example  and  a  stimulus  to  those  who  may  have  to 
fight  the  battle  over  again.  The  third  reading  of  the 
Bill  was  carried  by  a  majority  of  34,  including  the  Irish 
vote,  so  that  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales  pronounced 
against  it,  and  when  the  Bill  went  to  the  Lords  in 
September  they  threw  it  out. 

While  the  debates  were  going  on  in  the  House  of 
Commons  in  the  spring,  at  the  very  moment  the  Irish 
delegates  came  over,  the  Unionist  cause  suffered  a 


PRESIDENT    OF   THE    CHELTONIAN    SOCIETY      289 

severe  loss  by  the  death  of  Lord  Derby.  To  Lecky  it 
also  meant  the  loss  of  an  old,  true  and  faithful  friend. 
'I  never  knew  anyone,'  he  wrote  to  Lady  Derby,  'who 
distinguished  so  clearly  between  the  specious  and  the 
true,  who  was  so  little  swayed  by  the  passions  and  illu- 
sions of  the  hour,  and  who  aimed  more  steadily  at 
promoting  the  real  interests  of  men.'  '  You  judged 
his  character  rightly,'  answered  Lady  Derby;  'few 
had  better  opportunities  than  yourself  of  doing  so. 
It  was  only  those  in  whom  he  found  a  sympathetic 
nature  that  could  appreciate  him;  even  they  could 
not  know  the  depth  of  his  moral  qualities.'  In  the 
Memoir  which  Lady  Derby  asked  him  to  write  at  a 
later  period  he  was  glad  to  pay  a  public  tribute  to  his 
memory. 

Lecky  had  been  elected  president  of  the  Cheltonian 
Society  for  the  year  1S93,  and  he  had  to  preside  over 
the  annual  dinner  which  took  place  on  July  5.  In 
his  speech  proposing  Cheltenham  College  he  drew  a 
comparison  between  the  college  of  his  time  and  that 
of  to-day,  with  all  its  new  developments,  the  chief 
of  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  tie  of  sympathy 
that  continued  to  exist  between  former  boys  and  their 
school.  He  passed  in  review  many  men  who  had 
been  educated  there  and  who  had  in  various  ways, 
as  soldiers  or  civilians,  gained  distinction  in  after-life. 
Some  years  later  —  in  1897  —  Lord  James  of  Here- 
ford, chairman  of  the  Council  of  Cheltenham  College, 
asked  Lecky  to  become  a  life  member  of  the  govern- 
ing body,  which  he  accepted. 

After  the  usual  crowded  season  he  spent  his  holi- 
day chiefly  in  his  brother-in-law's  old  country  house 
in  Holland.  He  always  took  some  solid  books  with 
him  to  read  in  the  quiet,  undisturbed  life  he  led  there, 
and  this  time  one  of  them  was  the  first  volume  of  a 
20 


290  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

history  of  the  United  States,  which  the  author,  Mr. 
James  Ford  Rhodes,  had  sent  him. 

'  You  will,  I  am  sure,  understand,'  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Rhodes  (Vosbergen,  September  5,  1893),  'how  diffi- 
cult it  is  for  anyone  who  has  serious  literary  work  of 
his  own  on  hand,  and  who  at  the  same  time  lives  amid 
the  whirl  of  London  life,  to  read  with  proper  care  a 
long  history  on  a  subject  unconnected  with  his  own 
pursuits.  I  have  been,  however,  for  the  last  few  weeks 
staying  in  a  very  out-of-the-way  country  house  in  a 
remote  part  of  Guelderland,  and  your  History  has 
been  one  of  my  chief  companions.  I  cannot  refrain 
from  writing  a  few  hues  to  say  how  much  pleasure  I 
have  derived  from  it  and  how  much  it  has  taught  me. 
Very  few  books,  indeed,  have  helped  me  so  much  to 
understand  American  poHtics,  and  the  desire  you  show 
to  do  justice  to  all  sides  and  to  tell  the  exact  truth  in 
all  controversies  is  very  manifest  on  every  page.  It 
is  a  rare  quahty  —  especially  in  books  deaUng  with  a 
period  of  history  that  is  so  recent  and  so  steeped  in 
party  passion.  .  .  .  Few  things  in  writing  history,  I 
think,  should  be  more  cultivated  than  the  power  of 
throwing  ourselves  alternately  by  an  effort  of  the  imag- 
ination into  each  side  of  a  controversy,  and  thus 
presenting  the  rival  arguments  and  facts  as  they  ap- 
peared to  the  best  men  in  the  opposing  ranks.  I 
hope  very  much  that  you  may  be  able  to  complete 
your  programme.  An  impartial  history  of  the  Civil 
War,  and  of  the  consequences  that  followed  it,  would 
be  a  most  valuable  contribution  to  political  as  well  as 
to  historical  Hterature.' 

He  wrote  in  the  summer  of  1893  an  article  for  the 
Forum  on  Lcroy-Beaulieu's  '  Israel  Among  the  Na- 
tions,'^ and  a  short  protest  in  the  New  Review  against 
the  abuses  of  advertising.     Survivals  of  the  old  national 

1  Published  in  the  Historical  and  Political  Essays. 


HOLLAND  291 

life  in  a  country  always  interested  him  particularly, 
and  in  Holland  he  had  exceptional  opportunities  of 
seeing  these.  After  visiting  one  of  the  out-of-the- 
way  parts  of  the  country  he  wrote  to  his  step- 
mother : 

Vosbergen:  August    15,   1893.  — ' .  .  .  We    spent   a 

very  pleasant  time  with  the  G s  from  Monday  to 

Friday.  There  are  two  or  three  pleasant  famihes  in 
the  neighbourhood  whom  we  know,  and  we  took  some 
long  and  interesting  drives  along  the  banks  of  the 
Zuyderzee,  a  long,  high  dyke  fringing  miles  upon  miles 
of  vast,  intensely  green  meadows  intersected  with 
long  canals  —  speckled  with  great  groups  of  very 
beautiful  cattle,  with  herons  and  great  flights  of  sea 
birds.  We  went  to  two  curious  and  old-world  villages 
which  in  the  Middle  Ages  formed  a  considerable  town, 
where  a  very  beautiful  distinctive  costume  is  univer- 
sally worn;  and  the  people  intermarrying  mainly  among 
themselves  have  quite  a  distinct  type  —  a  singularly 
beautiful  one,  with  thin,  dehcate  lips  and  a  curious 
air  of  refinement.  They  are  fishermen  —  very  pros- 
perous —  and  their  houses,  with  their  china,  and  silver 
ornaments  and  prints  of  the  House  of  Orange  and 
great  Bibles  with  silver  clasps,  and  perfectly  preter- 
natural neatness,  are  very  interesting  to  see.  They 
seem  well  educated,  are  extremely  reUgious  in  a  Puri- 
tanical way  —  some,  I  am  told,  considering  the  use 
of  a  looking-glass  wrong  —  and  have  three  distinct 
Churches  representing  different  inflections  of  Cal- 
vinism.' 

In  the  autumn  he  went  with  his  wife  to  an  island, 
Schiermonnikoog,*  off  the  north  coast  of  Holland,  and 
with  nothing  between  it  and  the  North  Pole.     There 


I'Eye  of  the  Grey  Monk.'     There  was  a  description  of  this 
visit  in  Longman's  Magazine. 


292  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

he  enjoyed  the  magnificent  sea  air,  the  beautiful  sands, 
with  innumerable  sea  birds,  and  the  original  character 
of  the  place,  which  was  quite  out  of  the  beat  of  tourists. 
They  afterwards  visited  some  Belgian  towns,  and  went 
home  by  Paris,  as  usual. 

The  death  of  his  doctor  and  friend.  Sir  Andrew 
Clark,  in  November  1893  was  an  irreparable  loss  to 
Lecky.  He  was  a  most  able,  kind  and  disinterested 
physician,  possessed  of  very  remarkable  working 
power,  which  he  used  for  the  benefit  of  his  fellow- 
creatures.  He  had  a  peculiarly  sympathetic  insight 
into  the  temperament  of  the  brainworker,  with  its 
high-strung  nerves  and  delicate  organisation,  and  he 
was  the  doctor  of  many  eminent  men.  He  was  very 
devoted  to  his  patients,  who  placed  the  greatest  con- 
fidence in  him,  and  Lecky  felt,  with  many  others, 
that  his  loss  could  not  be  replaced. 

On  his  return  to  London  that  autumn  he  was  asked 
by  the  Prince  of  Wales  —  now  King  Edward  —  to 
inaugurate  a  series  of  lectures  at  the  Imperial  Insti- 
tute by  giving  the  opening  address.  Though  he  was 
always  anxious  to  extricate  himself  from  what  he 
called  the  entanglements  of  side-tasks,  and  to  concen- 
trate himself  on  his  own  work,  he  could  not  refuse  a 
repeated  request.  He  selected  for  his  theme  the 
Value  and  Growth  of  the  Empire.  The  Prince  pre- 
sided, and,  in  opening  and  closing  the  proceedings, 
said  some  very  gracious  and  appreciative  words.  The 
lecture  proved  to  be  exactly  suited  to  the  occasion. 
It  not  only  met  with  warm  approval  from  his  audi- 
ence in  England,  it  also  struck  a  sympathetic  chord 
among  his  friends  in  the  Colonies.  '  Old  as  I  am, ' 
wrote  Judge  Go  wan  from  Canada,  '  in  reading  it  there 
was  stirred  within  me  all  the  enthusiasm  of  younger 
days.  .  .  .  The  address  will  do  much  good  and  is  very 


FRENCH    INSTITUTE  293 

grateful  to  the  feelings  of  loyal  men  in  Canada.'^  It 
was  translated  into  German  by  Dr.  I.  Imelmann, 
and  appeared  in  the  Preussische  Jahrbilcher.- 

Lecky's  views  about  the  future  did  not  escape  a 
tinge  of  the  pessimism  which  coloured  those  of  many 
thinking  men  who  had  passed  middle  life. 

'It  is  curious,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  November  16, 
1893,  'how  many  fellow-pessimists  you  have  just  now. 
Grant  Duff,  who  was  an  old  and  steady  Liberal,  told 
me  not  long  ago  that  he  was  delighted  to  be  sixty-five, 
as  he  thought  the  world  was  going  for  some  time  to 
come  to  be  a  very  disagreeable  place,  and  Mundella 
(from  whom  I  should  have  hardly  expected  such  a 
sentiment)  said  to  me,  a  propos  of  these  labour  ques- 
tions, much  the  same.  I  suppose  the  experiment  of 
SociaUsm  in  some  form  will  be  tried,  and  it  is  highly 
probable  that  before  it  is  accomplished  a  great  portion 
of  the  English  population,  having  driven  away  their 
trade,  will  find  Uving  here  impossible.' 

Mr.  Henry  Reeve  also  used  to  say  that  he  was  not 
sorry  to  be  near  the  close  of  his  life,  as  t-he  order  of 
things  he  cared  for  was  passing  away.  In  Lecky's 
Commonplace  Books  there  is  often  a  sentence  at  the 
end  of  the  year  which  sums  up  a  dominant  idea.  On 
December  31,  1893,  he  wrote,  'The  world  seems  to 
me  to  have  grown  very  old  and  very  sad.' 

Before  the  end  of  the  year  he  first  learnt  through 
Comte  de  Franqueville,  an  old  and  valued  friend,  that 
he  had  been  elected  Correspondent  of  the  French 
Institute  in  the  Academic  des  Sciences  morales  et 
politiques,  an  honour  which  he, much  appreciated. 
'Nous  sommes  heureux  de  penser,'  wrote  M.  Georges 


1  It  has  been  included  in  the  Historical  and  Political  Essays. 
a  Band  Ixxv.  Heft  2. 


294  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

Picot,  'que  ce  vote  creo  entre  nous  des  liens  et 
que  nous  compterons  sur  nos  listes  le  premier  his- 
torien  de  I'Angleterre.'  Lecky  had  many  friends 
among  eminent  Frenchmen,  and  even  some  French 
connexions/  and  an  almost  yearly  stay  in  Paris  kept 
him  in  touch  with  French  life  and  French  thought. 
Though  many  attempts  had  been  made  to  translate 
his  books  into  French,  the  translators  apparently 
never  could  come  to  terms  with  the  French  publishers. 
His  books,  however,  had  many  readers  in  France,  and 
there  was  an  affinity  between  his  own  and  the  French 
mind  which  was  recognised  by  some  eminent  French 
writers.  'Je  ne  connais  pas  d'ecrivain  Anglais,'  M. 
Albert  Reville  once  wrote  to  him,  'qu'un  Frangais 
puisse  lire  avec  plus  d'aisance  et  plus  de  satisfaction 
litteraire.'  He  thought  Lecky  had  kept  the  best  tra- 
ditions of  style  of  the  eighteenth  century,  combining 
with  it  the  resources  which  the  erudition  of  the  nine- 
teenth alone  could  give  him;  and  reading  him  was 
therefore  an  esthetic  as  well  as  an  intellectual  enjoy- 
ment. 

In  the  winter  he  wrote,  at  the  request  of  Lady  Derby, 
the  Memoir  of  Lord  Derby,  which  has  already  been 
alluded  to.  It  was  to  serve  as  introduction  to  his 
'Speeches,'  which  she  wished  to  publish.  It  is  not 
always  easy  for  a  candid  biographer  to  please  the  rela- 
tions, but  Lady  Derby  was  far  too  large-minded  to 


1  His  wife's  uncle  by  mar-  him  and  M.  de  St.  Albin  with 

riage,  M.  Paul  Grand,  and  his  the  publication  of  his  Memoirs. 

daughter  lived  in   Paris,   and  These     were,     however,     not 

always  received  Mr.  and  Mrs.  published  till  after  the  death 

Lecky    very    hospitably.     M.  of    both.     Introduction   to    the 

Grand    was    the    godson     of  Memoirs  of  Barras. 
Barras,     who    had     entrusted 


LORD    ROSEBERY  295 

wish  for  anything  but  a  true  picture,  and  she  knew  it 
could  not  be  anything  but  a  sympathetic  one.  '  Lady 
Derby/  wrote  Mr.  Reeve,  'is  deHghted,  as  she  well 
may  be,  with  your  admirable  sketch  —  most  felici- 
tous, she  calls  it';  and  she  wrote  herself  to  Lecky,  'I 
am  greatly  pleased.  The  sketch  is  exactly  the  sort 
of  Memoir  I  wished  for;  and  you  are  quite  right  to 
have  been  perfectly  sincere;'  and  when  it  appeared 
she  wrote:  '  Let  me  thank  you  again  for  your  Memoir,' 
which  is  quite  perfect.  .  .  .  The  Due  d'Aumale  has  just 
been  here  and  is  very  happy  you  should  have  written 
the  Memoir.' 

The  Due  d'Aumale  was  a  member  of  'The  Club,'^ 
and  when  in  London  he  always  made  it  a  point  to 
attend  it.  The  most  able  and  brilliant  of  the  sons 
of  Louis  Philippe,  he  entertained  his  fellow-members 
on  those  occasions  with  many  good  stories  of  past 
times.  As  author  of  the  *  Histoire  des  Princes  de 
Conde/  he  was  anxious  that  they  should  all  have  a 
copy  of  this  work  from  him  on  their  bookshelves. 
His  munificent  gift  of  Chantilly  to  the  French  Insti- 
tute, which  has  saved  the  most  priceless  collection 
from  dispersion,  has  earned  him  the  gratitude  of  all 
the  intellectual  world. 

In  the  spring  of  1894  Mr.  Gladstone  resigned  and 
Lord  Rosebery  succeeded  him,  and  great  expectations 
were  entertained  about  a  reconstruction  of  the  Liberal 
party. 

*  I  think  from  a  Colonial  point  of  view  the  change  in 
Ministry  is  much  to  be  rejoiced  at,'  Lecky  wrote  to 
Judge  Gowan,  March  6,  1894,  'as  the  Imperial  idea  is 
certainly  the  strongest   with    Lord    Rosebery.      The 

>  It  has  been  included  in  the  Historical  and  Political  Essays. 
2  See  ante,  p.  120. 


296  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE      LECKY 

general  belief  is  that  he  cannot  hold  his  present  team 
long  together  and  that  an  election  will  take  place  in 
the  early  summer;  but  I  think  moderate  men  look 
kindly  on  him,  and  hope  that  after  a  period  of  opposi- 
tion he  may  be  able  to  bury  Home  Rule  and  reconstruct 
the  Liberal  party  on  a  more  respectable  basis.  .  .  . 
We  shall  probably  within  the  next  year  or  so  have 
some  scheme  carried  out  for  reforming  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  House  of  Lords.  If  it  can  provide  us  with 
the  inestimable  blessing  of  a  strong  Upper  Chamber, 
I  at  least  will  rejoice.' 

Meanwhile  Lecky  was  working  at  his  '  Democracy 
and  Liberty.'  In  July  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth:  'I  get 
very  much  knocked  up  with  London  heat,  which  has 
been  very  intense.  I  shall  have  not  quite  finished 
seven  out  of  ten  or  eleven  chapters  of  which  I  mean 
my  new  book  to  consist.' 

He  and  his  wife  went  that  summer  to  the  Tyrol, 
and  made  a  pleasant  stay  at  Madonna  di  Campiglio,  a 
lovely  spot,  but  owing  to  its  altitude,  more  than  5000 
feet  above  the  sea,  with  a  somewhat  rough  climate. 
He  wrote  to  his  stepmother: 

'The  place  is  extremely  beautiful,  with  a  delightful 
mixture  of  Italian  colouring  and  Alpine  air,  with  large 
fir  woods  and  fine  distant  glaciers,  and  the  strangely 
jagged  and  pinnacled  forms  of  the  Dolomites  with 
their  streaks  of  porphyry,  and,  I  think,  perhaps  a 
greater  variety  of  walks  than  any  mountain  place  I 
know.  We  mean  to  stay  here  all  August,  but  not,  I 
think,  longer.  The  hotel  is  very  crowded,  but  we 
have  now  got  comfortable  rooms.  Among  the  few 
people  we  know  are  Sir  Charles  Halle  and  his  very 
charming  Swedish  wife,  who  plays  the  violin  beauti- 
fully, and  whom  I  dare  say  you  know  under  her  pro- 
fessional name  of  Norman  Neruda.' 

During  their  stay  Sir  Charles  and  Lady  Halle  gave 


MADONNA   DI   CAMPIGLIO  297 

an  admirable  concert  for  the  poor  of  Campiglio,  and 
there  was  the  usual  banquet  on  the  Emperor  of  Aus- 
tria's birthday.  His  Majesty's  health  was  proposed, 
and  representatives  of  various  nationalities  —  a  Hun- 
garian General,  an  Italian  Prince,  a  German  Minister, 
and  Lecky  —  paid  a  tribute  on  behalf  of  their  country- 
men to  the  sovereign  whose  sagacious  influence  car- 
ried so  much  weight  in  the  councils  of  Europe. 

'One  sees  a  good  many  interesting  people  here  of 
different  nationalities,'  he  wrote,  'and  I  am  rather 
struck  with  the  uniform  pessimism  of  the  more  intel- 
ligent Italians  I  meet.  Taxation  in  Italy  seems  to 
have  very  nearly  reached  the  point  of  bankruptcy,  and 
the  level  of  public  men  to  have  been  vastly  lowered 
since  the  reduction  of  the  suffrage.'^ 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lecky  went  afterwards  to  the  Mendel- 
pass,  above  Botzen,  and  to  the  Italian  lakes.  They 
spent  a  week  or  two  at  Cadenabbia,  'and  of  that 
time  three  or  four  days  were  as  beautiful  as  could 
well  be  —  the  mountains  with  that  dreamy  mist  of 
sunshine  over  them  which  is  so  eminently  character- 
istic of  the  Lake  of  Como.'-  During  their  stay  the 
first  English  marriage  that  took  place  in  the  English 
church  was  celebrated  by  the  Bishop  of  Chichester, 
Dr.  R.  Durnford,  who  was  then  ninety-three,  and  whom 
Lecky  was  much  interested  to  meet.  'The  neigh- 
bouring villas  were  illuminated :  the  pair  went  away  in 
a  private  boat,  the  lady  steering  (as  might  be  ex- 
pected).'^ 

On  his  return  to  London  in  October,  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Lea: 


^  To  Judge  Gowan,  August  ^  From  a  letter  to  his  step- 

12,  1894.  mother,  Lugano,  September  25. 

3  Ibid. 


298  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

'  I  have  been  reading  with  great  pleasure  the  very 
striking  paper  on  the  "  Increase  of  Crime  "  which  you 
were  so  kind  as  to  send  me,  and  which  I  found  on  my 
arrival  a  few  days  since  from  the  Continent.  I  had 
just  before  been  reading  in  a  French  paper  some  very 
startling  statistics  about  the  increase  of  crime,  and 
especially  of  juvenile  crime,  in  France.  This  latter 
increase  I  find  generally  ascribed  to  the  present  not 
merely  secular,  but  positively  antitheistic  system  of 
education.  It  seems  certain  that  our  experience  in 
England  is  different  from  that  of  France,  and  I  am 
afraid  from  yours.  Sir  J.  Lubbock  very  recently 
collected  some  statistics  on  the  subject,  and  I  do  not 
think  there  is  any  doubt  whatever  that  crime  in  Eng- 
land has  largely  decreased  within  the  last  few  years,  and 
that  our  improved  methods  of  treating  juvenile  crime 
(all  of  which  I  imagine  exist  among  you)  have  proved 
eminently  successful.  The  diminution  of  drunken- 
ness may  not  be  so  clearly  estabhshed,  but  I  think  it 
is  real,  even  though  the  aggregate  amount  of  spirits 
consumed  may  have  shghtly  increased.  This  may, 
and  probably  does,  merely  mean  that  with  increased 
wages  moderate  drinkers  multiply.  I  should  fancy, 
as  you  hint  in  one  of  your  notes,  that  the  children  of 
foreign  parents  must  contribute  very  largely  to  your 
crime,  as  they  will  probably  have  lost  the  restraining 
moral  influences  of  the  creed  in  which  their  parents 
were  brought  up,  and  have  not  yet  had  time  to  experi- 
ence the  full  moulding  moral  influences  of  American 
life.  It  is  a  very  curious  and  important  subject  of 
inquiry,  for  the  increase  or  diminution  of  serious 
crime  is  one  of  the  best  tests  (though  certainly  not  the 
only  one)  of  a  nation  being  in  a  healthy  or  unhealthy 
condition.  I  am  very  glad  that  you  are  able  to  keep 
so  fully  abreast  of  these  modern  questions  at  a  time 
when  you  are  doing  so  much  to  elucidate  mediaeval 
history.  I  have  been  for  the  last  two  years  occupied 
with  subjects  equally  modern,  but  I  do  not  expect  to 


DEATH   OF  MR.   FROUDE  299 

have  finished  what  I  am  writing  for  about  eighteen 
months.  I  was  much  interested  in  what  you  wrote 
me  in  your  last  letter  about  Socialism  in  America. 
In  Europe  it  is  tending  strongly  to  form  separate 
parliamentary  groups,  and  is  hkely  in  this  way  to 
be  much  more  dangerous  than  when  it  was  merely  a 
form  of  revolution.  It  is  startling  to  observe  how 
rapidly  it  has  grown  of  late  years  in  the  German 
Parliament,  and  how  powerful  it  already  is  in  the  great 
municipal  bodies  both  of  London  and  Paris.  A  great 
deal  that  is  very  curious  on  the  subject  was  published 
a  year  ago  by  M.  Guyot  in  his  book  on  "  The  Tyranny 
of  Socialism."' 

Mr.  Froude  was  now  living  at  Oxford,  having  given 
up  London  when  he  was  appointed  Regius  Professor 
of  History,  and  he  and  Lecky  only  met  on  rare  occa- 
sions. Once,  when  on  a  visit  to  their  friend,  Mr. 
George  Brodrick,  Warden  of  Merton  College,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Lecky  went  to  see  Mr.  Froude  and  received  the 
usual  cordial  welcome,  but  before  long  a  fatal  illness 
struck  him  down.  '  Froude  is,  I  believe,  dying,'  wrote 
Lecky  to  Mr.  Booth,  October  16,  1894,  'a,  great  man 
vanishing  from  living  literature.  It  makes  me  feel 
very  old  to  find  how  rapidly  I  am  coming  to  stand  in 
the  oldest  generation  of  writers.  If  I  have  a  quiet 
life  in  my  library  for  the  next  year  or  so,  I  hope  to 
get  through  the  writing  (not  printing)  of  my  present 
book,  but  so  many  things  may  happen  to  prevent  it.' 

A  few  days  afterwards  (on  October  20)  Mr.  Froude 
died,  and  Lecky  wrote  the  same  day  to  Miss  Froude 
expressing  his  most  earnest  sympathy  on  her  father's 
death.  'Few  men,  indeed,'  he  wrote,  'have  won  more 
affection,  or  lived  down  more  animosity,  or  borne 
themselves  (as  I  have  had  much  reason  to  know)  amid 
grave  differences  of  opinion  with  such  a  complete 
absence  of  personal  bitterness.     It  has  been  a  full  and 


300  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

brilliant  life,  brilliant  as  ever  to  the  end  —  and  I  hope 
that  Oxford  has  thrown  a  peaceful  and  happy  evening 
light  upon  its  close.' 

Lecky  was  asked  that  autumn  to  write  a  few  pages  of 
reminiscences  for  Mr.  Stuart  Reid's  '  Life  of  Lord 
Russell.'  Such  tributes  to  the  memories  of  public 
men  whom  he  had  known  always  derived  their  value 
from  the  sympathetic  insight  as  well  as  great  sincerity 
which  they  showed.  '  I  shall  always  be  grateful  to 
him,'  wrote  Mr.  Rollo  Russell  after  Lecky's  death, 
'for  his  words  about  my  father,  for  he  was  one  of  the 
few  who  understood  his  character.' 

In  December,  while  on  a  visit  to  Sir  Richard  Jebb  at 
Cambridge,  he  wrote  to  Judge  Gowan: 

'  I  avail  myself  of  a  short  visit  I  am  making  to  Cam- 
bridge (for  the  purpose  chiefly  of  seeing  a  Greek  play, 
which  is  being  admirably  acted  by  the  young  men)  to 
thank  you  for  your  kind  letter  and  very  interesting 
paper.  .  .  .  Ireland  is  just  now  profoundly  quiet, 
the  only  sounds  being  the  quarrels  of  the  Home  Rulers 
among  themselves.  The  Parnellites  (nine  votes) 
have  declared  openly  against  the  Government  and  are 
abusing  Morley  as  much  as  they  once  abused  Balfour. 
I  think  if  the  next  election  returns  a  decided  Union- 
ist majority  (which  seems  probable)  we  shall  hear 
little  more  of  Home  Rule.  The  indifference  of  the 
leading  Ministers  to  it  is  hardly  concealed.  ...  A 
good  many  of  us  over  here  are  a  good  deal  irritated  at 
the  attempts  you  are  making  in  Canada  to  overthrow 
the  Copyright  Law,^  enabling  your  printers  to  reprint 

>  Canada     was     under    the  duty  at  the  Canadian  Custom 

British    Copyright    Act,     and  House    on    all    American    re- 

the  Canadian  Government  had  prints  coming  into  the  coun- 

undertaken  to  collect  for  the  try,    but    this    was    evidently 

benefit    of    British    authors   a  evaded. 


CANADA   AND   COPYRIGHT  301 

our  works  without  the  consent  or  control  of  the  author, 
and  often  probably  (as  constantly  happened  in  Amer- 
ica) keeping  them  before  the  public  in  their  first  crude 
and  imperfect  form  long  after  new  discoveries  or  fresh 
materials  had  led  to  their  revision.  We  are  old- 
fashioned  enough  to  think  that  literary  property  (which 
perhaps  approaches  creation  more  than  any  other)  is 
real  property,  and  that  an  English  author  has  a  clear 
right  to  control  the  sale  of  his  own  works  in  the  Queen's 
dominions.  The  greatest  step  which  has  been  taken 
in  this  generation  for  the  benefit  of  English  authors 
and  the  estabhshment  of  the  principle  of  literary 
property  was  the  American  Copyright  Act,  and  your 
proceedings  are  likely  gravely  to  endanger  it.  More- 
over, if  you  adopt  the  piratical  course,  other  Colonies 
will  doubtless  follow  your  example.  The  royalty 
supposed  to  be  collected  at  the  Canadian  Custom 
House  for  the  benefit  of  English  authors  has  been  a 
pure  farce.  Sir  C.  Lyell  once  told  me  he  had  received 
a  notice  from  the  Treasury  that  2s.  6d.  was  waiting 
for  him,  having  been  sent  from  Canada,  but  as  it  was 
a  2s.  cab  fare  to  get  it,  he  did  not  claim  it.  As  far  as  I 
can  make  out,  few  authors  have  received  from  this 
source  as  much  as  I  have,  i.e.  £1  9s.  lOd.  in  twenty- 
six  years!  So,  on  the  whole,  I  think  English  authors 
have  some  grievances  against  Canada,  however  much 
they  may  admire  some  Canadian  legislators.' 

Canada,  in  wishing  to  get  rid  of  the  British  Copy- 
right Law,  had  passed  an  Act  of  its  own  in  1889,  for 
which  it  repeatedly  tried  to  obtain  the  sanction  of 
the  British  Government.  In  1S94,  when  the  Canadian 
Premier,  Sir  John  Thompson,  visited  England  he 
pressed  the  matter,  and  there  was  some  danger  of  the 
Government  giving  in.  An  important  deputation, 
including  Lecky,  waited  on  the  Colonial  Secretary, 
Lord  Ripon,  on  November  26,  and  forcibly  repre- 
sented to  him  the  injury  the  Bill  would  inflict  on  the 


302  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

whole  copyright  question.  After  that  the  matter 
hung  fire,  but  in  the  following  spring  of  1895  the  danger 
seemed  once  more  imminent,  and  strong  protests  were 
made  by  authors  and  publishers  in  the  Contemporary 
Review  of  April.  '  It  is  surely  not  too  much,'  wrote 
Lecky  in  his  own  incisive  way,  'to  ask  the  Queen's 
Ministers  in  England  to  protect  the  property  of  the 
Queen's  subjects  from  legalised  plunder  in  any  part 
of  her  dominions.  This  is  the  only  favour  that  Eng- 
lish literature  asks  or  expects  from  their  hands.' 


CHAPTER  XII 

1894-1896. 

LL.D.  degree  at  Glasgow  —  General  Election  —  Mr.  Rhodes' 
'  History '  —  Mr.  Bayard  —  Offer  of  Dublin  University 
Seat  —  Centenary  of  the  French  Institute  — Contested 
Election  —  The  Religious  Cry  —  Answer  to  Correspondents 
—  Clonakilty  contra  mundum  —  Result  of  the  Election  — 
Congratulations  —  Maiden  Speech  —  Land  Bill  —  Publica- 
tion of  '  Democracy  and  Liberty '  —  Appreciative  Letters  — 
Critics  —  Essay  on  Gibbon  —  Essay  on  Swift  —  Judge 
O'Connor  Morris  —  Debates  on  the  Land  Bill. 

During  the  winter  of  1894-1895  Lecky  worked  exclu- 
sively at  his  '  Democracy  and  Liberty/  which  was  now 
approaching  its  completion.  Several  honours  were 
bestowed  upon  him  at  this  time.  He  was  elected  by 
the  Royal  Academy  to  the  office  of  Honorary  Secretary 
for  Foreign  Correspondence  in  succession  to  the  late 
Sir  Henry  Layard,  and  this  made  a  very  pleasant 
connexion  between  him  and  that  distinguished  body, 
among  whom  he  had  many  friends.  Lord  Kelvin 
wrote  that  Glasgow  University  wished  'to  have  the 
honour'  of  conferring  the  degree  of  LL.D.  upon  him 
and  that  the  ceremony  would  take  place  on  April  16. 
The  year  1895  was  an  eventful  one  in  Lecky's  life. 
Early  in  the  spring  he  lost  his  brother-in-law,  at  whose 
country  house  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  staying  some 
time  almost  every  summer.  Baron  W.  van  Dedem 
had  been  Minister  for  the  Colonies  in  a  Liberal  Dutch 
Cabinet,  and  after  his  party  went  out  of  office  in  1894  he 

303 


304  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

started  on  a  journey  to  India,  wishing  to  compare  its  ad- 
ministration with  that  of  the  Dutch  East  Indies,  in 
which  he  was  particularly  interested.  The  transition  of 
temperature  from  Calcutta  to  Darjeeling  brought  on  a 
fever,  which  ended  fatally  on  his  return  to  Calcutta, 
where  he  intended  taking  the  steamer  for  Java,  The 
news  reached  his  relations  by  telegram  on  April  4, 
and  Lecky  greatly  felt  the  loss  of  a  friendship  of  nearly 
twenty-five  years.  Soon  after  this  sad  event  Lecky 
went  to  Scotland  to  receive  the  degree.  He  took  the 
opportunity  to  make  a  short  tour  among  the  Scottish 
Lakes  to  get  some  bracing,  and  wrote  from  Inversnaid 
to  his  wife,  who  had  gone  to  The  Hague: 

April  13,  1895.  —  'I  can  feel  how  moving,  even 
though  in  some  sense  pleasant,  it  must  be  to  have  so 
many  signs  of  your  brother's  hold  upon  the  affections 
of  those  aljout  him.  He  had  indeed  a  transparent 
single-mindedness  and  high-mindedness  of  character 
that  it  was  impossible  to  mistake,  and  few  men  can 
have  devoted  themselves  more  absolutely  and  exclu- 
sively to  public  and  unselfish  interests.  Perhaps  in 
a  small  country  this  is  more  fully  appreciated,  because 
it  is  more  observed  than  in  a  great  one.' 

He  had  tw^o  lovely  days  on  Loch  Lomond,  'quite 
Italian,  and  the  lake  looking  beautiful';  and  he  then 
went  to  Glasgow,  where  he  stayed  with  Lord  and  Lady 
Kelvin,  whose  kindness  he  much  praised.  Principal 
Caird  was  ill,  so  there  was  no  address,  and  Lord  Kelvin 
performed  the  ceremony. 

It  took  place  in  the  large  fine  hall  built  by  Lord 
Bute.  The  students  were  very  civil,  and  the  merits 
of  the  new  graduates  were  'related  in  the  English 
tongue.'  Among  his  colleagues  were  Mr.  Frazer  of  the 
Golden  Bough,  and  an  interesting  old  Scottish  natu- 
ralist of  more  than  eighty,  named  Robertson,  whose  life 


POLITICAL   CONDITIONS  305 

has  been  written  by  Mr.  Stebbing.  'There  was  after- 
wards a  luncheon,'  he  wrote/  'where  I  was  treated  as 
guest  of  honour  and  had  to  reply  for  all  the  non-divin- 
ity LL.D.s,  which  I  duly  did.' 

In  consequence  of  the  retirement  of  Mr.  Gladstone 
from  politics  the  burning  question  of  Home  Rule  fell 
into  abeyance  and  a  period  of  relative  quiet  followed 
on  the  excitement  of  previous  years. 

From  Loch  Awe  he  wrote  to  Judge  Gowan  on  April 
21,  1895: 

.  .  .  '  Politics  here  are  in  a  state  of  curious  lassitude. 
The  Irish  question  by  a  sort  of  tacit  agreement  has 
fallen  into  the  background,  and  the  conviction  that 
the  Government  cannot  through  its  weakness  carry 
any  really  dangerous  measure,  and  is  half-hearted  in 
all  it  does,  has  much  diminished  the  animosity  with 
which  it  was  regarded  in  the  days  when  Gladstone 
reigned.  It  is  a  curious  and  I  suppose  unprecedented 
thing  that  the  three  most  important  elected  bodies  in 
England  are  just  now  all  of  them  almost  equally  bal- 
anced, A  precarious  majority  of  fourteen  in  the 
House  of  Commons  —  a  majority  of  three  in  the 
London  School  Board  —  an  exact  tie  among  the  elected 
members  of  the  London  County  Council.  On  the 
whole,  the  present  tendencies  seem  Conservative  and 
Anti-Socialist.  I  think  Gladstone  has  really  given  up 
politics.  I  met  him  a  few  weeks  ago  at  a  dining  club 
to  which  we  both  belong.  He  is  always  very  agreeable, 
interesting,  and  courteous,  but  very  deaf  and  rather 
blind,  and  not  now  capable  of  talking  to  a  whole 
table,  though  delightful  to  those  who  sit  near  him. 
He  is  at  present  very  full  of  Bishop  Butler  and  intend- 
ing, I  believe,  to  edit  his  works.  It  is  a  wonderful 
old  age,  whatever  one  may  think  of  his  principles  and 
pontics.' 

1  To  his  wife. 
21 


306  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

After  his  return  to  London,  Lecky  wrote  to  Mr. 
Booth,  May  30 :  '  I  have  been  working  very  hard  all 
this  year,  and  shall  have  to  do  so  to  the  end,  as  I  want 
if  possible  to  publish  my  book  (two  volumes)  in  the 
spring,  though  it  is  possible  I  may  have  to  delay  it 
till  October.  I  always  find  a  long  task  a  great  solace 
amid  the  troubles  of  life,  and  a  great  settling  and 
calming  influence.' 

The  general  election  in  the  summer  of  1895,  follow- 
ing on  the  defeat  of  the  Liberal  Government,  brought 
in  the  Conservatives  with  a  very  large  majority.  It 
showed  'beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt,'  as  Lecky 
said  in  his  '  Democracy  and  Liberty,' '  that  on  the  Home 
Rule  question  the  House  of  Lords  represented  the  true 
sentiments  of  the  democracy  of  the  country.'  'I  sus- 
pect the  last  election,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  'will 
make  many  think  Lord  Beaconsfield  right  in  his 
belief  (which  was  shared  by  Bismarck  and  Louis  Napo- 
leon) that  the  most  uninstructed  classes,  if  you  go 
deep  enough,  are  essentially  conservative.'' 

In  the  course  of  the  summer  he  went  twice  to  Hol- 
land to  be  present  at  the  weddings  of  his  two  sisters-in- 
law,*  who  had  often  travelled  with  him  and  his  wife, 
and  who  used  to  pay  them  yearly  visits  in  London. 
He  stayed  for  some  weeks  in  the  old  country  house  — 
everything  the  same  and  yet  so  different  without  the 
owner,  who  was  the  soul  of  it.  He  brought  with  him 
the  typewritten  copy  of  his  book  to  revise,  and  an- 
other volume  of  Mr.  Rhodes'  'History,'  the  earlier 
volumes  of  which  he  had  read  at  Vosbergen  some  years 
before. 

'  I  have  been  reading  it  with  the  greatest  interest,' 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Rhodes,  August  25,  1895,  'and  have 

1  Now  Mme.  de  Beaufort  and  Baronne  de  Braun. 


MR.   RHODES'    '  HISTORY'  307 

learnt  much  from  it.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  read  a 
history  which  is  more  transparently  fair  and  which 
deals  with  subjects  that  naturally  rouse  strong  party 
feeUng  in  a  spirit  of  more  absolute  impartiality.  Both 
in  the  question  between  North  and  South  and  in  the 
question  between  America  and  England  you  have 
shown  this  spirit  in  an  extraordinary  degree,  and  I 
tliink  your  book  will  do  a  great  deal  to  appease  ani- 
mosities and  to  teach  different  sides  to  understand  and 
appreciate  each  other.  I  am  old  enough  to  remember 
vividly  your  great  war,  and  was  then  much  with  an 
American  friend  —  a  very  clever  lawyer  named  George 
Bemis,  whom  I  came  to  know  very  well  at  Rome.  I 
had  been  writing  just  before  receiving  your  book  my 
impressions  of  English  opinions  on  the  war  (for  a 
book  which  I  hope  to  publish  next  spring)  and  I  do  not 
think  you  will  find  that  they  differ  at  all  materially 
from  yours.  The  only  element  you  seem  to  me  to 
have  omitted  is  the  Italian  question,  which  in  the 
few  years  before  your  war  had  accustomed  English- 
men to  assert,  in  the  most  extreme  form,  the  doctrine 
that  every  large  body  of  men  have  a  right  to  form 
their  government  as  they  please.  I  was  myself  a 
decided  Northerner,  but  the  'right  of  revolution'  was 
always  rather  a  stumbhng-block.  I  much  admire 
the  industry  with  wliich  you  have  grappled  with  the 
newspaper  material,  which  is  the  terror,  almost  the 
nightmare,  of  the  nineteenth-century  historians.' 

'It  is  the  best  account,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  'I 
have  ever  read  of  the  events  that  led  to  the  American 
Civil  War.  American  books  are  much  less  read  in 
England  than  they  should  be.  They  always  interest 
me  greatly,  dealing  as  they  do  with  the  more  advanced 
stages  of  democracy  to  which  we  are  coming.' 

A  very  friendly  intercourse  with  each  successive 
American  representative  contributed  to  keep  up  Lecky's 
interest  in  American  affairs.     '  I  have  become  great 


308  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

friends/  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Lea,  '  with  Mr.  Bayard,  whom 
we  all  like  greatly.  He  is  not  of  your  party,  but  I  do 
not  think  anyone  can  come  in  contact  with  him  with- 
out feeling  for  him  a  very  warm  friendship.  Certainly 
America  has  been  most  fortunate  in  her  last  three 
representatives  —  men  very  unlike  each  other  but  all 
most  respected  and  admired  over  here.' 

Mr.  Bayard's  warm  feelings  of  regard  for  Lecky  are 
shown  in  the  following  letter,  written  on  receiving 
Lecky's  portrait,  which  he  had  expressed  a  wish  to 
possess: 

(To  Mrs.  Lecky.)  '  You  have  given  me  a  great  and 
abiding  pleasure  in  this  picture  of  your  husband.  My 
respect  and  admiration,  gathered  from  his  writings, 
had  long  ago  made  me  look  forward  eagerly  and  with 
especial  interest  to  making  the  personal  acquaintance 
of  the  man  himself  — ■  and  as  you  know,  one  is  apt  to 
conceive  a  portrait  in  imagination  which  is  not  always 
carried  out  when  the  real  personality  comes  in  view  — • 
but  Mr.  Lecky  proved  all  that  my  fancy  painted  him 
and  something  even  finer  and  better.  The  picture  is 
delightful  —  an  admirable  likeness  of  a  singularly 
refined  and  intellectual  head  and  face.' 

In  the  course  of  the  month  of  October,  when  the 
seat  for  Dublin  University  became  vacant  by  the 
elevation  of  Mr.  Plunket  to  the  peerage,  Lecky  received 
an  urgent  requisition  from  an  influential  body  of  elect- 
ors to  stand  for  the  seat.  It  was  represented  to  him 
that  his  doing  so  would  be  of  great  service  to  his  Uni- 
versity, and  also  to  the  cause  of  University  representa- 
tion; and  though  his  early  enthusiasm  for  Parliament 
was  now  extinguished,  and  he  felt  somewhat  too  old 
to  begin  a  new  career,  he  thought  that  on  the  grounds 
adduced  it  was  his  duty  to  waive  all  personal  objections 
and  accede  to  the  request.     He  was  given  to  under- 


DUBLIN   UNIVERSITY   ELECTION  309 

stand  at  first  that  he  would  be  returned  unopposed, 
and  indeed  a  contest  seemed  most  improbable.  In 
him  the  electors  had  a  candidate  who  not  only  had 
made  a  great  reputation  by  his  works,  but  who  had 
rendered  signal  services  to  Ireland  and  to  the  cause 
of  the  Union.  It  might  even  be  said  that  there  was 
no  one  out  of  Parliament  who  had  fought  the  battle 
of  the  Union  more  strenuously  and  more  disinterest- 
edly, or  whose  words  carried  greater  weight.  The 
electors  as  a  body  would  have  done  themselves  and 
the  University  credit  by  unanimously  electing  such 
a  candidate.  But  this  point  of  view  did  not  appeal 
to  some  of  the  legal  profession,  who  had  held  the  Uni- 
versity seat  almost  uninterruptedly  since  the  Union. 
They  were  not  going  to  give  it  up  without  a  struggle, 
and  they  supported  a  candidate  of  their  own  —  Mr. 
Wright,  a  popular  member  of  the  Munster  Bar.  Lecky's 
feelings  at  the  time  are  best  described  in  his  own  words: 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  Athenoeum  Club:  October  18,  1895. 
— '  So  many  electors  have  so  very  urgently  and  so 
very  kindly  asked  me  to  stand,  and  have  so  much 
insisted  that  it  would  be  for  the  advantage  of  the 
University  that  I  should  do  so,  that  I  did  not  think 
it  right  to  refuse,  especially  as  I  have  finished  the 
writing,  though  alas!  not  begun  the  printing  of  my 
new  book.  Plunket,  Fitzgibbon,  and  various  others 
have  been  very  kind  about  it.  As  you  know,  I  have 
not  the  smallest  desire  for  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  am  lamentably  deficient  in  the  nerve  that  is  re- 
quired for  a  public  man,  and  I  feel  too  old  for  a  new 
career;  but  a  University  seat  is  much  less  trying  than 
any  other,  and  I  hope  I  may  become  a  respectable 
quiet  member  (if  returned)  hke  Jebb  and  Sir  George 
Stokes  of  Cambridge.' 

'  No  one  can  be  more  surprised  at  it  [the  Candida- 


310  WILLIAM   EDWAED  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

ture]  than  myself/  he  wrote  to  the  Provost,  Dr.  Salmon, 
'for  of  late  years  nothing  has  been  more  contrary  to 
my  wishes,  nothing  more  uncongenial  to  my  tastes 
than  to  go  into  the  House  of  Commons.  It  was  rep- 
resented to  me,  however,  so  strongly,  that  there  was  a 
wish  in  T.C.D.  that  I  should  represent  it,  and  that  by 
standing  I  might  render  it  some  real  service,  that 
I  thought  it  my  duty  to  accept.  If  this  feehng  is  as 
real  and  as  widely  spread  as  is  represented  to  me,  I 
think  I  have  done  rightly  —  though  whether  for  my 
own  happiness  I  have  acted  wisely,  especially  if  this 
matter  involves  a  long  delay  and  an  expensive  contest, 
is  quite  another  question.  However,  the  die  is  cast 
and  you  will,  I  beheve,  see  my  election  address  on 
Monday  or  Tuesday.  I  am  just  going  to  Paris  for  the 
Institut  Centenaire,  where  I  am  afraid  I  shall  not 
meet  you  though  we  are  colleagues.' 

Lecky's  supporters  could  not  but  feel  gratified  that 
at  this  very  juncture  he  should  have  been  the  one  Irish- 
man who  represented  his  University  among  the  dis- 
tinguished men  of  all  nations  gathered  together  at 
the  invitation  of  the  French  Institute  to  celebrate 
its  centenary.^  The  ceremonies  and  fetes  that  were 
given  on  the  occasion;  the  memorable  speeches  made 
in  the  great  hall  of  the  Sorbonne ;  the  admirable  acting 
at  a  gala  representation  at  the  Theatre  Frangais;  the 
fine  recitations  at  M.  Poincare's,  Minister  of  Public 
Instruction,  were  worthy  of  the  best  French  tradi- 
tions. Not  the  least  impressive  ceremony  was  the 
solemn  service  at  St.  Germain  des  Pres  in  memory  of 
the  deceased  members  of  the  Institute,  among  whom 
was  Mr.  Reeve ,2  who  had  died  just  before.  The  Due 
d'Aumale,  too  unwell  to  attend  the  celebration,  re- 


'  A  description  of  the  visit       zine,  December  1895. 
appeared  in  Longman's  Maga-  ^  Lecky   wrote  a  short  me- 


THE   CONTEST  311 

ceived  the  guests  at  Chantilly,  where  they  were  able 
to  inspect  the  magnificent  inheritance  of  the  Insti- 
tute. 

Meanwhile  Lecky's  election  address  had  been  issued, 
and  on  his  return  to  London  he  soon  found  himself  in 
all  the  turmoil  of  a  contest.  As  his  opponent  was  also 
a  Unionist  there  were  no  political  issues;  but  Lecky 
had  written  books  and  he  did  not  live  in  Ireland,  and 
these  two  facts  —  especially  the  former  —  were  util- 
ised against  him  by  his  opponents.  In  drawing  their 
own  deductions  from  certain  passages  in  his  writings 
they  sought  to  prejudice  the  clerical  electors.  For 
weeks  columns  of  the  Irish  papers  were  filled  with 
letters  discussing  Lecky's  religious  convictions — 
some  of  the  writers  not  even  having  read  his  books; 
indeed,  as  'a  country  parson'  wrote,  the  electioneer- 
ing device  would  '  completely  fail  with  those  who  were 
most  familiar  with  Mr.  Lecky's  writings.'  His  posi- 
tion was  very  clear.  Like  Macaulay  at  Leeds,  he  was 
ready  to  say  '  I  am  a  Christian ' ;  but  like  him  also  he 
protested  against  the  use  of  inquisitorial  methods  and 
the  introduction  of  the  most  sacred  subjects  into  a 
political  election.  Several  electors  wrote  to  him  ask- 
ing what  his  religious  belief  was,  and  he  always  an- 
swered that  while  he  was  happy  to  give  any  information 
about  his  politics  he  must  absolutely  decline  to  answer 
questions  of  this  sort. 

'For  a  long  time  past,'  he  wrote  to  one  of  these 
correspondents,  '  I  believe  all  self-respecting  candi- 
dates for  Parliament  in  England  have  taken  this 
course,  and  I  should  far  rather  lose  the  election  than 


moir    of    Mr.    Reeve    for    the      published    in    the    Historical 
January  number,  1896,  of  the      and  Political  Essays. 
Edinburgh    Review,    since    re- 


312  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

recede  from  it.  If  you  think  a  religious  test  should 
be  exacted  from  members  for  this  University  (a  purely 
undenominational  body)  you  had  much  better  vote 
for  my  opponent,  for  I,  at  least,  will  never  take  it. 
If  you  care  to  investigate  my  opinions  on  these  sub- 
jects, my  books  have  long  been  before  the  pubhc,  and 
are,  I  presume,  known  to  several  of  the  gentlemen  at 
whose  kind  request  I  am  coming  forward.' 

The  Primate  (Dr.  Robert  Gregg)  and  most  of  the 
higher  clergy  and  important  men  in  other  professions 
were  his  supporters,  and  the  Press  were  almost  all  on 
his  side,  foremost  among  them  the  Times  and  the 
Dublin  Daily  Express,  which  fought  his  cause  warmly. 
Lord  Morris  happily  characterised  the  contest  as 
'Clonakilty^  contra  mundum.'  His  committees  in 
Dublin  and  in  London  worked  for  him  with  the  great- 
est zeal  and  devotion.  All  his  friends  showed  an 
enthusiasm  and  sympathy  which  were  most  gratify- 
ing, and  many  whom  he  did  not  know  took  up  his 
cause  warmly.  Among  those  who  fought  his  battle 
in  the  Irish  newspapers  was  a  clever  and  high-minded 
woman, 2  too  early  taken  from  her  family  and  friends. 
Under  the  signature  'Pro  Universitate '  she  wrote  a 
series  of  letters  refuting  the  attacks  upon  Lecky,  with 
excerpts  from  his  own  books,  which  no  one  knew  better 
than  herself,  though  at  that  time  she  did  not  know 
the  author.  The  contest  was  one  of  the  bitterest 
there  had  been  in  Dublin  for  a  long  time,  and  carried 
with  it  a  great  deal  that  was  unpleasant  to  him;  but 
there  was  no  bitterness  on  his  side,  and  he  went  through 
it  all  with  the  calm  of  a  philosopher.     On  the  day  of 


1  The  centre  of  the  Munster      K.C.,  who  was  on  Lecky's  corn- 
circuit,  mittee. 

2  The  wife  of  Mr.  Samuels, 


NOMINATION   SPEECHES  313 

the  nomination  he  was  proposed  by  Dr.  Gwynn, 
Regius  Professor  of  Divinity,  and  seconded  by  the 
late  Sir  John  Banks,  Regius  Professor  of  Medicine,  in 
terms  of  the  greatest  appreciation.  Dr.  Gwynn  in  his 
speech  laid  stress  on  the  special  significance  of  this 
election  and  on  the  importance  of  having  a  member, 
such  as  Mr.  Lecky,  who  held  an  independent  position 
and  who  had  nothing  to  gain  from  any  party.  .  .  . 
For  what  was  the  meaning  of  University  representa- 
tion? Was  it  not  that  University  members  'should 
introduce  a  higher  level  into  the  arena  of  party  poli- 
tics?' 

Lecky  explained  his  reasons  for  coming  forward  as  a 
candidate  and  dealt  with  the  attacks  that  were  made 
upon  him;  but  his  speech  from  the  hustings  was  mainly 
devoted  to  the  great  questions  of  policy  that  were 
before  the  country,  and  his  supporters  expressed  their 
gratification  at  his  dignified  and  statesmanlike  atti- 
tiude.  His  speech  was  drowned,  like  all  the  others, 
amidst  the  boisterousness  of  the  College  boys,  who, 
as  he  testified,  'were  very  good-natured  and  shouted 
and  threw  about  College  caps  very  impartially  during 
the  two  and  a  half  hours  the  proceedings  continued.' 
He  was  curiously  indifferent  to  the  result  as  far  as 
he  was  himself  concerned;  though  he  felt  convinced 
that  no  greater  damage  could  be  done  to  the  Univer- 
sity than  imposing  a  religious  test,  and  that  few  things 
would  do  so  much  to  lower  its  position  before  the  edu- 
cated opinion  of  Europe  as  the  belief  that  it  was 
possible  for  anyone,  by  such  means,  to  become  its  rep- 
resentative. The  polling  went  on  for  five  days,  and 
from  the  first  it  was  apparent  that  he  would  win. 

'It  is  a  very  curious  experience,'  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Booth,  Dublin,  December  4,  1895,  'being  in  the  midst 
of  a  fiercely  contested  election,  especially  when  the 


314  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Odium  Theologicum  plays  as  great  a  part  as  here. 
Whole  columns  of  the  Irish  Times  are  usually  occupied 
with  letters  about  my  rehgious  belief,  some  of  these 
written  by  very  curious  persons.  ...  I  hope  next 
Monday  to  be  back  in  London  and  again  immersed  in 
proof-sheets.  We  have  had  an  unusually  large  poll, 
and  my  supporters  hope  that  my  majority  may  be 
only  a  httle  less  than  two  to  one.' 

He  was  finally  returned  with  a  majority  of  746,^ 
though  there  was  no  doubt  that  votes  were  lost  to 
him  through  the  tactics  used  by  his  opponents;  these 
produced  a  revulsion  of  feeling  which  he  hoped  would 
do  some  permanent  good.  The  election  excited  an 
extraordinary  amount  of  interest,  not  only  in  the  three 
kingdoms  but  abroad.  Congratulations  came  from 
far  and  wide,  and  even  a  newspaper  from  Paraguay 
recorded  the  result. 

'The  House  of  Commons  is  to  be  congratulated,' 
wrote  one  of  the  great  scholars  of  the  time,  '  as  others 
have  doubtless  said,  on  your  accession  to  it,  and  speak- 
ing in  the  capacity  of  a  University  member  I  may 
express  the  peculiar  satisfaction  which  will  certainly 
be  felt  by  that  much  threatened  contingent.  The 
enrolment  in  it  of  the  foremost  EngUsh  man  of  letters 
will  be  welcomed  with  all  the  greater  warmth  because 
he  does  not  labour  under  the  disadvantage  of  being 
a  Professor  —  a  thing  which  no  Englishman  ever 
really  forgives.  I  believe  that  your  return  has  prob- 
ably added  several  years  to  the  life  of  University 
representation.' 

Lecky  made  many  warm  friends  on  the  occasion. 
'  When  he  first  consented  to  stand  for  the  University,' 
wrote  one  of  them,  '  his  great  name  and  writings  were 


1  On  a  poll  of  2768,  one  of  the  largest  on  record. 


IN   THE    HOUSE    OF    COMMONS  315 

sufficient  to  inspire  us  all  with  enthusiasm,  but  within 
the  last  few  days,  since  he  came  amongst  us,  that 
enthusiasm  has  deepened  into  the  far  more  human 
feeling  of  strong  personal  regard,'  and  after  the  elec- 
tion some  of  his  opponents  became  his  staunch  sup- 
porters. As  for  Lecky's  own  feelings,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  when  all  the  unpleasantness  of  the  contest 
was  passed  he  was  pleased  and  gratified  to  represent 
his  University.  To  a  man  who  had  keenly  followed 
politics  all  his  life,  Parliament  —  the  centre  of  polit- 
ical life  of  a  great  Empire  —  could  not  but  have  a 
certain  attraction.  He  was  interested  to  come  into 
closer  contact  with  the  practical  side  of  politics,  and 
he  found  in  the  House  many  people  whom  he  liked, 
among  others  his  old  friend  Sir  George  Trevelyan,  who 
to  his  regret  resigned  the  following  year.  In  1898 
another  old  friend  of  his,  Mr.  Arthur  Elliot,^  came  in 
as  member  for  Durham,  and  being  on  the  same  side 
of  politics  they  frequently  sat  together.  Lecky 
watched  with  much  sympathy  the  careers  of  younger 
men.  Though  Parliament  brought  him  a.  large  in- 
crease of  correspondence,  he  always  maintained  that 
his  constituents  gave  him  very  little  trouble.  Still 
on  the  whole  a  literary  life  suited  his  tastes  better. 
He  felt  too  old  and  unambitious  to  do  much  in  Parlia- 
ment. 'Literature  does  not  lead  to  much  that  is 
very  splendid,'  he  wrote  at  that  time,  'certainly  not 
in  the  way  of  money,  but  for  myself  I  far  prefer  it 
to  a  political  life.'  He  was  conscious  of  a  great  deal 
of  waste  of  time;  he  found  the  multitude  of  questions 
that  had  to  be  made  up  somewhat  overwhelming,  and 
the  late  hours  very  tiring. 


'  The  Hon.  Arthur  Elliot  had  succeeded  Mr.  Reeve  as  editor 
of  the  Edinburgh  Review. 


316  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Though  he  meant  to  be,  at  least  the  first  year,  the 
most  unobtrusive  of  members,  he  was  induced  to  speak 
very  soon  after  the  opening  of  the  Session.  It  was  on 
February  17,  on  the  question  of  releasing  those  Irish 
prisoners  who  had  been  condemned  under  the  Treason 
Felony  Act  and  who  had  been  in  penal  servitude  for 
thirteen  years.  While  expressing  the  strongest  con- 
demnation of  their  crime  —  that  of  setting  explosives 
—  he  pleaded  for  clemency  on  the  ground  that  these 
prisoners  had  nearly  served  their  time;  that  Ireland 
was  now  quiet,  and  that  the  Government  was  strong 
enough  to  show  mercy  without  exciting  the  suspicion 
of  being  intimidated  or  overawed.  Lecky  spoke  with- 
out preparation,  and  on  that  occasion  took  his  position 
in  Parliament.  Contemporary  evidence,  from  a  source 
which  cannot  be  suspected  of  bias,  is  the  best  one  can 
have: 

'The  reception  accorded  by  the  House  of  Commons 
to  Mr.  Lecky,'  said  a  Liberal  paper,  the  Westminster 
Gazette,  the  next  day,  'has  exploded  the  popular  fal- 
lacy that  the  House  is  jealous  of  an  outside  reputation. 
.  .  .  His  appearance  was  greeted  with  loud  and  enthu- 
siastic cheers  from  every  quarter  of  the  House.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Lecky  spoke  without  notes,  in  a  somewhat  thin, 
clear  voice,  which  was  distinctly  heard  in  every  corner 
of  the  House.  The  speech,  which  was  admirably  put 
together,  was  delivered  with  great  force,  and  the  im- 
pression produced  was  universally  favourable.' 

From  the  moment  Lecky  entered  Parliament  he  be- 
came a  favourite  subject  for  the  caricaturist,  espe- 
cially in  the  Westminster  Gazette.  Sir  F.  Carruthers 
Gould,  one  of  the  great  masters  of  the  art,  has  an  un- 
disputed skill  in  portraiture,  and  though  caricature 
necessarily  means  grotesqueness,  he  rarely,  if  ever, 
exceeded  its  due  limitations. 


A   NEW   IRISH    LAND    BILL  317 

Lecky,  in  his  '  Democracy  and  Liberty/  had  ex- 
pressed his  views  about  the  increase  of  predatory  legis- 
lation, and  he  soon  had  occasion  to  say  in  the  House 
—  speaking  on  the  Benefices  Bill  ^  —  that  a  member 
of  Parliament  could  adopt  no  better  rule  than  steadily 
to  vote  against  all  measures  which  implied  confisca- 
tion without  compensation. 

One  of  the  chief  measures  announced  for  the  session 
was  another  Irish  Land  Bill,  which  purported  to  amend 
the  defects  of  previous  ones.  Though  it  contained 
some  useful  provisions,  such  as  the  extension  of  the 
Land  Purchase  Acts,  it  was  very  contentious  in  other 
ways.  Before  its  introduction  Irish  landowners  were 
full  of  apprehension,  as  the  following  letter  from  Lecky 
to  Lord  Dufferin  shows: 

Athenceum:  March  9,  1896. — 'I  return  with  many 
thanks  your  admirable  paper,  which  I  have  read  ver}^ 
carefully.  If  considerations  of  justice  or  even  real 
considerations  of  expediency  dominated  in  Irish 
poUtics  it  would  be  perfectly  invincible,  but  Ireland, 
which, is  an  exception  to  many  rules,  has,  I  fear,  also 
become  an  exception  to  the  old  rule  that  honesty  is 
the  best  policy.  Whether  the  reign  of  triumphant 
dishonesty  (seldom  more  marked  than  in  the  Union- 
ist Act  of  1887)  is  now  about  to  terminate  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say.  Few  things  grow  with  a  more  portentous 
rapidity  than  dishonest  precedents,  which  are  gener- 
ally admitted  as  purely  exceptional  and  certain  to  do 
no  practical  harm  in  their  restricted  sphere,  and  which 
soon  become  the  starting-point  and  logical  premise  of 
more  extensive  measures.  I  have  been  going  very 
fully  into  the  Irish  land  question  of  late,  having  de- 
voted a  good  many  pages  to  it  in  a  new  book  which 


'  A  Bill  to  amend  the  law  respecting  the  exercise  of  Church 
patronage. 


318  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

is  coming  out  at  the  end  of  this  month.  I  do  not 
think  we  shall  have  much  legislation  before  Easter, 
as  we  are  threatened  with  much  obstruction  on  the 
Estimates,  and  as  there  is  a  large  part  of  the  rank  and 
file  behind  the  Government  much  disinclined  to  any 
new  departure.  I  only  hope  that  the  great  opportu- 
nity of  a  commanding  and  homogeneous  Unionist 
majority  will  not  be  lost.' 

'I  am  sorry  to  say,'  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  'one  of 
their  [the  Government's]  measures  is  a  new  Land  Bill 
which  again  raises  the  questions  of  improvement  and 
fair  rent,  and  will,  I  am  afraid,  do  much  to  unsettlp 
agrarian  relations.  Another  reduction  of  rents  would, 
I  fear,  ruin  many,  and  it  would  check  the  flow  of  money 
to  Irish  land  which,  after  a  long  period,  had  begun 
again  after  the  last  election.  If  we  could  only  induce 
this  House  to  leave  us  alone  for  a  few  j^ears  it  would 
be  the  greatest  boon  Parhament  could  bestow  on  us'. 

One  of  Lecky's  first  official  duties  was  to  take  part 
in  the  election  of  a  Professor  of  Irish  for  Trinity  Col- 
lege. He  went  to  Ireland  during  the  Easter  vacation, 
and  began  by  going  to  Donegal,  wanting  very  much, 
as  he  wrote  to  the  Provost,  'to  get  a  week  or  so  of 
good  air  in  the  West  of  Ireland,  in  some  happy  region 
where  no  speeches  have  to  be  made  or  listened  to.' 
He  wrote  from  there  with  his  usual  enthusiasm  for 
the  Atlantic  air  and  scenery,  and  with  that  interest 
in  animate  nature  which  he  shared  with  his  friends 
Sir  Mountstuart  Grant-Duff  and  Sir  John  Lubbock.^ 
'The  weather,  so  far,  is  lovely,'  he  wrote  from  Port- 
salon,  'and  the  colouring  over  the  mountains,  Lough 
Swilly  and  the  broad  Atlantic,  quite  ideally  beautiful.' 
Carrigart  struck  him  as  curiously  like  the  Eye  of  the 
Grey  Monk  (Schiermonnikoog) ,  'with,  of  course,  the 


'  Now  Lord  Avebury. 


'democracy  and  liberty'  319 

addition  of  mountains.'  In  both  places  small  sea 
birds  trotted  about  in  flocks,  and  '  it  is  amusing  here 
to  see  them  regularly  following  the  plough  to  pick 
up  worms.' 

'Democracy  and  Liberty'  had  now  come  out,  and 
on  his  return  to  London  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth: 

'  I  hope  my  book  may  do  some  good,  though  it  must 
necessarily  offend  large  classes.  ...  It  will  probably 
be  my  last  long  book,  and  I  often  feel  it  a  pity  that  I 
should  have  gone  into  a  sphere  for  which  I  am  very 
Uttle  suited  instead  of  remaining  where  I  could  do 
something  of  real  value.  I  have  now,  however, 
written  a  great  deal,  and  probably  expressed  all  my 
best  ideas,  and  I  must  try  to  make  the  best  of  my 
new  Ufe  for  a  few  years.  You  will  find  a  great  deal 
very  interesting  on  the  better  side  of  Sociahsm  in  a 
very  interesting  Italian  book  (translated  into  English), 
Nitti's  ''CathoUc  Socialism,"  I  have  been  spending  a 
pleasant  fortnight  in  Ireland,  which  I  much  wanted 
as  I  had  got  extremely  run  down  —  partly  in  Donegal, 
which  is  to  my  mind  the  most  deUcious  air  in  the  world, 
and  where  there  are  now  some  excellent  hotels,  and 
partly  with  the  Provost  in  T.C.D.,  where  I  had  to  take 
part,  as  M.P.,  in  the  election  of  a  Professor  of  Irish 
—  choosing  between  three'  very  competent  scholars. 
As  I  do  not  know  a  word  of  the  language  or  any  of 
the  candidates,  you  can  appreciate  my  competence, 
but  really,  in  the  House  of  Commons  one  gets  quite 
accustomed  to  that  kind  of  thing,  having  to  vote 
almost  nightly  on  matters  one  does  not  understand. 
If  you  have  never  watched  our  proceedings  you  should 
come  in  some  night  when  you  are  here.  As  a  general 
rule,  there  is  no  difficulty  about  it.  I  get  very  tired 
with  this  Hfe,  its  late  hours,  the  crowd  of  questions, 
and  the  multitude  of  letters  it  entails.' 

The  '  Democracy  and  Liberty '  had  in  some  respects 


320  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

been  written  under  peculiar  difficulties,  treating  as 
it  does  of  a  vast  number  of  questions  and  of  the  laws 
and  institutions  of  a  great  many  countries.  He  found 
that  his  authorities  on  foreign  countries  were  not  al- 
ways trustworthy,  and  he  had  sometimes  to  make 
investigations  on  the  spot.  The  book  excited  a  great 
deal  of  interest,  and  it  was  on  the  whole  well  received. 
Men  in  various  parts  of  the  world,  whose  judgment 
he  valued,  wrote  to  express  their  concurrence  with 
his  views.  They  knew  that  these  views  were  not  the 
theories  of  a  scholar  who  lived  a  secluded  life  in  his 
library,  but  that  they  represented  the  experience  of 
a  man  who  had  from  early  days  closely  followed  poli- 
tics at  home  and  abroad,  and  who  had  had  much  inter- 
course with  some  of  the  foremost  statesmen  of  his  time. 
He  had  studied  the  forces  that  govern  the  political 
changes  in  various  countries,  and  his  knowledge  of  the 
history  of  the  past  added  strength  to  his  arguments. 
He  showed  the  evils  and  dangers  of  democracy,  but 
also  the  counteracting  influences. 

'Exegisti  monumentum,'  wrote  the  Australian  his- 
torian, Mr.  Rusden, '  I  cannot  but  believe  that  you  have 
given  the  world  a  text-book  on  the  great  and  vital 
questions  you  have  handled.'  Lecky's  defence  of 
University  representation  —  written  before  he  had  any 
idea  of  standing  for  one  of  them  —  received  grateful 
recognition  from  those  who  were  interested  in  its  future, 
for,  as  the  head  of  an  Oxford  College  wrote  to  him,  they 
looked  upon  him  as  the  representative  not  of  one  Uni- 
versity only  but  of  the  whole  University  system.  Lord 
Dufferin,  who  was  recognised  on  all  hands,  even  by 
Mr.  Gladstone,^  to  be  the  best  authority  on  the  Irish 


1  Life  of  the  Marquis  of  Dufferin  and  Ava,  by  Sir  Alfred  Lyall 
vol.  i.  p.  160. 


'democracy  and  liberty'  321 

land  question,  wrote  after  reading  Lecky's  pages  on 
the  subject:  'How  grateful  we  ought  all  to  be  to  you 
for  showing  up  the  infamy  of  our  treatment,  as  well 
as  predicting  the  consequences  which  will  be  sure  to 
follow  such  injustice.  I  am  happy  to  find  how  parallel 
to  what  you  have  written  my  paper  runs.' 

The  book  met  with  a  very  favourable  reception 
in  America,  as  reviews  and  letters  showed,  '  If  it 
betters  our  conditions  in  any  degree,'  wrote  a  corre- 
spondent from  Columbia  University,  New  York,  'you 
will  certainly  deserve  the  gratitude  of  every  American, 
and  in  fact  of  every  civilised  man.'  Mr.  Bayard  had 
read  the  book  with  deep  interest,  and  said  that  'Its 
high  moral  courage  and  independence,  elevation  of 
tone,  judicial  impartiality,  scope  of  investigation,  wide 
learning  and  philosophical  statement '  commanded  '  his 
admiration  and  respect'  —  and  from  'the  judicious' 
would,  he  felt  sure,  receive  them.  'Emphatically  you 
are  right,'  he  wrote,  'in  pointing  out  as  the  most 
malign  and  dangerous  element  in  the  United  States 

—  the  growing  Plutocracy.' 

As  Lecky  anticipated,  there  were  many  who  did  not 
agree  with  his  views  about  the  evils  of  democratic 
government.  But  he  was  always  interested  to  hear 
what  honest  opponents  had  to  say,  and  in  spite  of  all 
differences  they  recognised  in  him  a  political  thinker 
whose  opinions  were  entitled  to  respect.  The  book 
appeared  at  an  unfavourable  moment,  for  the  return 
of  a  large  Conservative  majority  seemed  to  show  that 
his  apprehensions  about  the  tendencies  of  democracy 
were  unfounded,  or  at  least  exaggerated.  His  views, 
however,  were  not  limited  to  any  particular  period 

—  he  took  a  broad  survey  of  the  political  history  of 
the  country  and  of  the  general  trend  of  affairs,  and  it 
very  soon  became  apparent  that  amidst  many  shift- 

22 


322  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

ing  elements  the  tendencies  which  he  had  described 
continued  to  dominate  in  Enghsh  politics/ 

'It  is  difficult  to  get  people  here  tobeUeve'  —  he 
wrote  to  Mr.  Lea  from  the  House  of  Commons,  May  19, 
1896  — '  that  there  are  dangers  in  Democracies  when 
that  of  England  has  recently  so  emphatically  con- 
demned log-rolUng  Sociahsm  and  class  bribery  and 
has  established  a  homogeneous  majority  stronger 
than  any  since  1832.  I  still  think,  however,  that  in 
the  long  run  a  very  wide  suffrage  will  prove  incom- 
patible with  that  complete  authority  in  the  State  which 
(unlike  your  Congress)  our  House  of  Commons  pos- 
sesses. The  strength  of  our  Government,  however, 
just  now  is  perfectly  phenomenal,  and  the  growing 
dissension  between  the  English  Nonconformist  and 
the  Irish  CathoUc  Nationahst  tends  still  further  to 
disorganise  the  Opposition.  Foreign  troubles  are 
what  is  chiefly  to  be  feared,  and  in  South  Africa  there 
is  grave  danger  of  a  race  division,  which  we  all  look 
on  with  great  alarm.  I  am  afraid  in  my  present  life 
I  shall  write  no  more  books.  A  short  paper  on  Gib- 
bon for  an  American  pubhcation  has  been,  since  my 
election,  my  sole  work  in  that  way.     However,  I  do 


1  See    Introduction    to    De-  type  of  Government  to  which 

mocracy   and  Liberty,    cabinet  we  have  been  accustomed  — 

edition,  p.  xix.     'I  think,'  he  that  it  tended  either  to  a  des- 

wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  in  1899,  potism  resting  on  a  plebiscite 

'people  rather  exaggerate  the  or,  at  least,  to  a  considerable 

pessimism  of  my  Democracy.    I  abridgment  of  the  powers  of  a 

clearly  recognised  that  in  nu-  democratic    house.       This    is 

merous  fields  the  world  was  ad-  done  in  the  U.  S.  A.  by  differ- 

vancing,  thoughldonotbeheve  ent    provisions    of    the    Con- 

the  democratic   theory  would  stitution.      In     England    the 

in    the   long   run    be   favour-  manifest   tendency   is   to  the 

able   to  self-government    and  increasing    monopoly    of  real 

especially  to  the  Parliamentary  power  by  the  Cabinet.' 


SPEECH  BEFORE  EOyCATION  LEAGUE     323 

not  mean  to  spend  all  the  rest  of  my  life  here.  The 
work  is  physically  very  tiring,  and  I  often  feel  that  a 
good  deal  of  it  might  be  done  equally  well,  with  a 
little  training,  by  a  fairly  intelligent  poodle-dog!  Of 
course  there  are  times  when  it  is  very  interesting  and 
sometimes  very  difficult,  and  a  few  years  of  such  work 
teaches  much.' 

The  essay  on  Gibbon  mentioned  in  the  letter  was 
for  an  American  publication,  the  'Warner  Classics.' 
Lecky  was  also  asked  at  this  time  for  a  biographical 
introduction  to  a  new  edition  of  Swift's  works,  and  it 
was  suggested  to  him  that  his  essay  on  Swift  in  the 
'Leaders  of  Public  Opinion'  might  serve  the  purpose. 
With  that  object  he  recast  and  amplified  it.  He  re- 
ceived a  request  to  be  President  for  the  year  of  the 
Social  and  Political  Education  League,  to  which  he 
agreed  after  some  demur,  on  condition  that  —  owing 
to  a  heavy  press  of  work  —  he  should  not  have  to 
deliver  an  address.  At  the  annual  meeting,  however,  he 
made  a  short  speech,  which  contained  some  philosophic 
reflections  and  truths  that  are  very  little  heeded: 

'Renan  has  said  that  an  undue  proportion  of  the 
English  intellect  is  devoted  to  politics;  but  how  little 
of  our  political  discussion  looks  beyond  the  interests 
of  a  party  or  an  election,  beyond  the  duration  of  a 
Ministry  or  a  parliament;  how  little  of  it  is  concerned 
with  those  remote  and  indirect  consequences  of  meas- 
ures which  are  often  far  more  really  important  than 
those  which  are  immediate  or  direct.  How  seldom  do 
we  find  the  principles  that  underhe  our  legislation 
impartially  and  judicially  examined.'  .  .  . 

Most  of  his  time  was,  however,  occupied  with  Parlia- 
mentary questions,  and  he  was  asked  to  join  the  London 
Committee  of  Irish  Landowners,  where  his  services 
were  much  valued.     He  wrote  a  memorandum  upon 


324  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

several  points  in  the  new  Land  Bill,  which  he  laid 
before  Ministers  to  consider,  and  two  letters  to  the 
Times  on  the  same  subject.  He  had  a  great  belief 
in  the  purchase  policy.  He  thought  'there  could  be 
no  worse  system  than  that  under  which  rents  are 
arbitrarily  reduced  on  a  scale  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
fall  of  agricultural  prices,  while  tenant  right  rises 
higher  and  higher  under  the  pressure  of  extreme  com- 
petition —  under  which  vast  masses  of  property  — 
bought  in  innumerable  instances  at  the  invitation  of 
Government  and  held  under  clear  parliamentary  titles 
—  are  transferred  without  compensation  from  one 
class  to  another,  under  which  the  main  object  of  popu- 
lar politics  is  to  break  contracts  and  annul  debts.' 

To  Judge  O'Connor  Morris  he  wrote  on  June  1, 
1896: 

'My  dear  Judge,  —  I  was  just  going  to  write  to  you 
to  say  how  deUghted  I  was  with  your  article  in  the 
Fortnightly  —  which  I  have  this  afternoon  been  urging 
all  the  members  of  the  Landlords'  Committee  here  to 
read  carefully  before  the  second  reading  of  the  Bill  — 
when  I  found  at  the  Athena3um  your  new  book.  I 
have  been  looking  in  it  with  the  keenest  interest,  and 
it  is  a  real  pleasure  to  me  to  know  that  there  is  a  short 
history  of  Ireland  which  is  not  the  work  of  a  party 
man.  May  I  thank  you  very  much  for  the  kind  way 
in  which  in  this  and  various  other  places  you  speak 
of  me.  I  think  the  book  of  the  son  of  Grouchy  de- 
fended him  successfully  about  the  Bantry  Bay  affair, 
...  I  am  getting  some  very  interesting  reviews  from 
America,  where  it  seems  the  great  goddess  Democracy 
is  a  good  deal  less  venerated  than  of  old.' 

A  few  days  after  he  wrote : 

June  4,  1896.  —  'I  have  been  reading  a  good  deal  of 
your  History,  including  the  part  which  I  know  the  best, 


DEBATES    ON    THE    LAND    BILL  325 

and  I  can  most  truly  say  that  it  seems  to  me  a  most 
masterly  performance,  both  from  the  literary  and  the 
historical  side.  It  interested  me  like  a  novel,  and  I 
am  full  of  admiration  for  the  amount  you  have  put 
into  such  a  small  space  and  for  the  admirable  sanity 
of  judgment  and  judicial  spirit  (that  comes  of  a  County 
Court  judge  writing  history  !)  you  display  in  writing 
on  subjects  about  which  very  few  people  are  either 
sane  or  impartial.  .  .  .  This  History  of  Ireland  seems  to 
me  indeed  decidedly  the  best  thing  of  yours  I  have  read.' 

Part  of  the  session  was  taken  up  with  an  Education 
Bill,  chiefly  intended  to  give  some  moderate  assistance 
to  Voluntary  schools  and  set  up  some  new  educational 
authorities.  Lecky  approved  of  its  main  provisions 
and  meant  to  speak  on  it,  but  the  speech  was  never 
delivered.  Opposition  and  obstruction  made  it  im- 
possible for  the  Bill  to  pass  that  session  and  —  like 
most  Education  Bills  —  it  was  finally  dropped. 

•  'Never,  I  suppose,  was  there  an  assembly  which 
wasted  more  time  than  this,'  was  his  experience  of 
his  first  session,  'but  then  it  might  do  much  worse 
things  than  waste  time.' 

The  Land  Bill  came  up  for  debate  late  in  the  session, 
and  Lecky  attended  night  after  night  —  two  all-night 
sittings  —  during  the  hot  summer  weather,  endeavour- 
ing with  the  small  band  of  Irish  Unionists  to  amend 
the  clauses  which  further  curtailed  the  rights  of  the 
landowners.  Many  of  the  questions  at  issue  were 
legal  and  technical,  and  he  found  the  legal  knowledge 
of  his  colleague  very  valuable.  'Carson,'  he  wrote 
to  Judge  O'Connor  Morris,  'is  a  great  help  to  us  all. 
He  is  so  quick  and  subtle  in  catching  points. '  That 
great  and  genial  fighter,  the  late  Colonel  Saunderson, 
at  that  time  leader  of  the  Irish  Unionists,  enlivened 
the  debates  with  his  incisive  speeches  and  witty  retorts. 


326  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

It  was  a  trying  time  for  Irish  Unionists  who  wished 
loyally  to  support  the  Government.  Privileges  which 
had  been  given  by  the  landlords  to  the  tenants  were 
by  this  Bill  given  to  the  tenants  as  rights.  The  clause 
on  the  turbary  rights  was  one  of  those  which  were  most 
contested.  Lecky  vigorously  opposed  it  in  two  de- 
bates. The  landlords  had  hitherto  allowed  the  tenants 
to  cut  turf  on  their  property  subject  to  supervision, 
but  by  this  clause  the  favour  they  had  granted  was 
transformed  to  the  tenants  as  a  right.  Swift  had 
already  shown  how  injurious  was  the  cutting  of  turf 
without  any  regularity,  and  anyone  who  knew  about 
Irish  land  was  aware  of  this  fact.  The  landlord  was 
deprived  of  his  right  not,  as  Lecky  said,  because  he 
had  abused  it.  'It  was  because  of  his  own  free  will 
and  generosity '  he  had  chosen  to  grant  these  privileges 
to  the  tenants,  that  they  were  to  be  taken  away  from 
him  for  all  future  time  and  he  was  to  lose  all  power  of 
supervision  and  control.  It  was  difficult  to  conceive 
a  more  direct  and  absolute  violation  of  the  rights  of 
property  than  this.'^ 

There  was  one  curious  little  episode  in  which  Union- 
ists and  Nationalists  were  agreed.  It  was  provided 
by  the  Land  Purchase  Act  of  1891  that  the  landlords 
should  be  paid  in  Land  Stock,  although  they  had 
asked  to  be  paid  in  cash,  as  stock  was  very  low  at  that 
time.  Now  that  Land  Stock  was  considerably  above 
par  the  Government  insisted  on  cash  payment.  'The 
extreme  shabbiness  of  this  proceeding,'  said  Lecky, 
'was  strongly  felt,  and  the  interests  of  both  landlords 
and  tenants  were  favourable  to  the  existing  system. 
Both  sides  of  Irish  politicians  accordingly  combined 


'  The  clause  was  amended  in  the  House  of  Lords  and  made 
harmless. 


IRISH    LAND    BILL   CARRIED  327 

to  oppose  the  Government  scheme.  The  Irish  attend- 
ance was  very  full.  Many  of  the  English  Conserva- 
tives were  absent  attending  a  royal  marriage,  and  the 
Government  was  defeated  by  a  majority  of  sixteen' 
(July  22). 

The  Irish  Unionists'  amendments  were  outvoted  by 
large  majorities.  English  Conservatives  neither  knew 
nor  cared  much,  and  supported  the  Government; 
among  the  exceptions  were  the  two  sons  of  the  Prime 
Minister,  who  steadily  supported  the  Irish  Unionists' 
vote.  The  Bill,  however,  was  considerably  improved 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  where  the  Irish  landlords  were 
supported  by  a  large  body  of  independent  peers. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

1896-1898. 

Mr.  Andrew  White's  'Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology'  — 
Travels  in  Austria  and  Hungary  —  T.C.D.  Historical  and 
Philosophical  Societies  —  'Cambridge  Modern  History'  — 
The  'Map  of  Life'  —  Introduction  to  'Life  of  Lord  Strat- 
ford '  —  The  Irish  University  Question  —  Report  of  Commis- 
sion on  Financial    Relations  —  Over-taxation    of    Ireland 

—  Combined  Protest  of  Unionists  and  NationaUsts  —  Sir 
Horace  Plunkett  —  English  Agricultural  Rating  Act  — 
Ireland's  Grievance  —  Lord  Dufferin's  Views  —  Sunday 
Closing  Act  —  Diamond  Jubilee  —  Privy  Councillorship  — 
Society  in  Trinity  College  —  Private  Papers  of  Wilberforce 

—  Ecclefechan  —  Burke  Centenary  —  Speech  on  Burke. 

During  a  stay  at  Ems  in  the  summer  Lecky  wrote  his 
views  on  some  poUtical  tendencies  in  England  for  the 
North  American  Review,  and  he  reviewed  Mr.  Andrew 
White's  '  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theol- 
ogy in  Christendom.'  Mr.  White  had  sent  him  his 
book,  which  Lecky  considered  one  of  the  most  compre- 
hensive and  most  valuable  historical  works  that  had 
appeared  for  many  years. 

The  subject  specially  appealed  to  him  as  he  had 
dealt  with  various  aspects  of  it  in  his  own  books,  and 
he  had  the  advantage  of  knowing  the  distinguished 
author,  with  whom  he  had  much  pleasant  intercourse 
both  in  Paris  and  in  London.  'I  have  been  reading 
here,'  he  wrote  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Bayard,  'very  care- 
fully and  with  great  admiration  for  your  countryman, 

328 


SPEECH    AT   THE    HISTORICAL   SOCIETY  329 

Mr.  Andrew  White's  "History  of  the  Warfare  of 
Science  with  Theology."  It  is  a  long  time  since  I 
have  read  a  book  which  seemed  to  me  so  valuable  and 
interesting.  I  wish  it  were  more  known  in  England. 
I  am  sending  a  short  notice  to  the  Times  (I  do  not  yet 
know  whether  they  will  find  room  for  it')  in  hopes  of 
helping  it  a  little.'  In  the  course  of  the  summer  he 
went  with  his  wife  to  Munich,  Zell-am-See,  Vienna, 
and  Budapest.  The  Hungarians  were  celebrating  the 
thousand-years  jubilee  of  their  national  existence,  and 
they  had  an  interesting  historical  and  industrial  ex- 
hibition, where,  among  other  anthropological  remains, 
might  be  seen  the  gigantic  skeleton  of  their  great 
founder  and  hero  Arpad.  Lecky  admired  the  situ- 
ation of  Budapest  and  found  Hungary  a  very  attrac- 
tive country.  With  a  strong  national  bias  the 
Hungarians  —  at  least  those  of  the  upper  classes — com- 
bine all  the  charm  of  a  cosmopolitan  education,  and 
intercourse  with  them  was  easy  and  pleasant.  The 
friends  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lecky  had  made  at  Campiglio 
were  .extremely  kind  and  hospitable  to  them  and  they 
saw  the  place  under  the  best  auspices. 

In  November  Lecky  had  to  be  again  in  Ireland, 
having  promised  to  speak  at  the  inaugural  meetings 
of  both  the  Historical  and  Philosophical  Societies.  At 
the  Historical  Society  the  auditor,  Mr.  Upington,  read 
a  paper  on  South  Africa,  and  Lecky  made  a  speech  to 
which  reference  has  already  been  made.^  South 
African  affairs  took  up  a  large  place  that  year  in  the 
politics  of  the  country,  and  were  eagerly  watched.  The 
memory  of  the  Raid,  of  its  causes  and  consequences, 
is  too  fresh  in   everyone's   mind  to  need  rehearsal. 


1  It  appeared  in  the  Times  of  December  8,  1896. 

2  See  ante,  p.  200. 


330  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Lecky,  in  commenting  on  the  situation,  said  that  the 
first  object  of  true  statesmanship  must  be  to  restore 
the  confidence  which  had  been  so  seriously  shaken, 
and  for  a  long  period  great  tact,  patience,  firmness, 
and  self-control  would  be  needed  in  the  guidance  of 
South  African  affairs.  Few  greater  calamities  could 
befall  the  nation  than  an  armed  conflict  in  the  Trans- 
vaal. 

In  the  course  of  the  year  he  received  a  pressing 
request  from  Lord  Acton  to  write  for  the  'Cambridge 
Modern  History,'  which  the  syndics  of  the  University 
Press  proposed  to  edit.  Lord  Acton  wrote,  with  the 
courtesy  that  distinguished  him,  that  so  much  of  his 
success  depended  on  Mr.  Lecky's  co-operation  that 
he  would  be  glad  to  assign  to  him  any  part  he  preferred. 
He  suggested  a  chapter  or  two  of  English  history  from 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  especially 
a  history  of  the  French  Revolution,  as  Lecky's  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  in  his  History  of  England  had 
shown  that  no  one  could  do  it  better. 

Lecky  was  not  very  enthusiastic  about  the  'com- 
posite enterprise,'  and  he  did  not  wish  to  undertake  a 
long  book,  such  as  was  proposed,  which  would  require 
a  great  deal  of  fresh  research,  and  for  which  his  parlia- 
mentary duties  left  him  no  time.  He  had  set  himself 
another  literary  task,  but  he  agreed  to  write  about 
Canning  'from  the  death  of  Londonderry  to  his  own.' 
The  chapter  was  to  be  in  Volume  IX.  and  would  not 
be  required  for  some  years.  It  was,  however,  not 
written. 

The  relations  between  England  and  America  that 
year  required  much  judicious  statesmanship,  owing  to 
the  attitude  of  President  Cleveland  about  the  Venezue- 
lan boundary  dispute;  and  fortunately  by  the  end  of 
the  year  the  matter  was  in  a  fair  way  of  being  settled. 


WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 
Frorn  a  Photograph  by  Bassaho,  1897 


BEGINS  THE   'MAP   OF  LIFE'  331 

In  consequence  of  the  election  of  a  new  President,  Mr. 
Bayard's  departure  was  now  approaching,  and  Lecky 
wrote  to  him  on  December  23,  1896: 

'  Thank  you  so  much  for  thinking  of  us  and  for  your 
kind  present  [the  portraits  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bayard]. 
I  always  think  these  closing  days  of  the  year  not  a 
cheerful  but  rather  a  painful  time,  when  one  thinks  of 
partings  past  and  to  come.  I  hope,  however,  that 
whatever  poUtics  may  do,  you  will  not  bid  a  final  fare- 
well to  us,  but  will  follow  the  good  example  of  Lowell, 
who  paid  us  visits  to  the  end.  I  am  glad  the  year  is 
ending  with  the  clouds  between  our  nations  dispersed, 
and  how  much  you  have  done  to  knit  them  together! 
I  am  sure  the  warm  personal  friendships  that  you  and 
Mrs.  Bayard  have  known  so  well  how  to  make,  do 
more  perhaps  than  any  other  thing  to  awake  the  feel- 
ing of  kindred  between  Enghsh  and  Americans.  When 
you  leave  us,  you  will  both  leave  memories  behind 
you  that  will  not  speedily  be  effaced.' 

In  December,  Lecky  began  his  book  on  the  conduct 
of  life,  in  which  he  intended  to  embody  some  of  the 
conclusions  he  had  formed  on  that  subject.  For 
many  years  past  he  had  written  down  in  his  common- 
place books  thoughts  and  observations  bearing  upon 
it,  and  it  had  always  been  his  wish  to  co-ordinate 
them  some  day  into  a  whole,  embracing  conduct  and 
character.  As  it  was  a  book  which  required  no  re- 
search, he  was  able  to  combine  the  writing  of  it  with 
his  parliamentary  work. 

When  Parliament  was  sitting  he  had,  however,  a 
large  number  of  letters  to  answer.  Added  to  his 
usual  correspondence  were  now  the  many  letters  from 
and  to  constituents  applying  for  places  through  their 
members;  letters  to  Ministers  on  their  behalf;  those 
concerning  the  interests  of  Trinity  College  or  of  the 


332  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

various  professions  or  educational  endowments;  in 
fact  a  variety  of  questions  seemed  to  arise  every  day. 
He  never  kept  a  secretary;  he  answered  everything 
himself,  and  business  letters  usually  the  same  day, 
for  he  disliked  arrears. 

He  took  much  pains  always  to  do  what  his  corre- 
spondents asked  him,  and  many  were  the  grateful 
acknowledgments  which  he  received.  He  daily  took 
a  bundle  of  letters  to  the  House  of  Commons  to  answer, 
endeavouring  to  keep  the  mornings  as  much  as  possible 
for  literary  work.  Never  was  there  a  man  more  regu- 
lar in  his  habits. 

Early  in  the  following  year  he  contributed,  at  the 
request  of  Miss  Canning,  a  short  introduction  to  an 
abridged  life  of  her  father.  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe, 
which  Miss  A.  L.  Lee  had  written.  His  personal 
recollections  gave  a  vivid  touch  to  the  subject.  'Sel- 
dom indeed,'  he  wrote,  'has  there  been  a  man  more 
clearly  marked  by  nature  as  a  king  of  men.  Men 
might  like  him  or  dislike  him,  but  it  was  scarcely  pos- 
sible to  come  into  his  presence  without  feeling  his 
magnetic  power,  without  recognising  the  commanding 
force  of  his  intellect  and  character.' 

The  session  of  1897  was  largely  occupied  with  Irish 
affairs.  It  was  erroneously  believed  at  that  time  that 
the  Irish  University  question  was  approaching  its 
solution,  and  that  a  Conservative  Government  were 
going  to  settle  it.  As  these  pages  have  shown,  Lecky 
had  for  years  past  watched  the  various  attempts  made 
to  meet  the  demands  of  the  Catholics,  and  he  had  given 
up  the  hope  that  the  liberal  policy  of  Trinity  College 
would  finally  overcome  their  opposition.  In  Decem- 
ber 1895,  after  his  election,  there  had  been  some  cor- 
respondence on  the  subject  in  the  Times  between  him 
and    Dr.    O'Dwyer,   the   Roman   Catholic    Bishop   of 


IRISH    UNIVERSITY   QUESTION  333 

Limerick.  Lecky,  in  liis  speech  at  his  nomination  — 
taking  a  survey  of  the  whole  poHtical  situation  — 
had  said:  'It  is  also  very  probable  that  we  shall  soon 
find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  a  new  University  ques- 
tion. It  is  idle  to  discuss  its  nature  until  the  inten- 
tions of  the  Government  are  disclosed.  On  this  subject 
it  appears  to  me  that  two  special  duties  devolve  upon 
the  members  for  this  University ;  one  is  to  guard  sedu- 
lously its  national  and  unsectarian  character.'  .  .  , 

Bishop  O'Dwyer,  in  a  letter  to  the  Times, ^  said  that 
he  had  been  struck  with  these  words  'in  Mr.  Lecky's 
remarkable  speech  at  his  nomination  for  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Dublin.'  He  however  took  exception  to  the 
terms  'national  and  unsectarian/  and  put  forward  the 
Catholic  claims  to  separate  University  education. 
Lecky  in  his  answer-  defined  the  position  of  Trinity 
College,  showing  all  it  had  done  to  place  the  Roman 
Catholics  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  Protestants, 
and  he  upheld  its  national  and  unsectarian  charac- 
ter, while  he  did  not  contend  that  nothing  more 
should  be  done  to  meet  their  wishes.  The  question 
was  further  discussed  in  letters^  which  excited  a  good 
deal  of  interest  at  the  time,  and  as  a  leading  article 
of  the  Times  said,  '  had  thrown  much  light  upon  the 
subject.' 

At  the  outset  of  the  session  of  1897  the  members 
for  Trinity  College  found  themselves  confronted  with 
the  Catholic  claims,  which  were  brought  forward  in 
an  amendment  on  the  Address.  Although  this  ques- 
tion has  now  been  settled,  it  may  be  of  some  interest 


>  December  13,  1895.  of  December  19  and  25,  and 

2  Times  of  December  15.  another    from    Lecky    in    the 

^  Two  more  letters  from  the  Times  of  December  20. 
Bishop  appeared  in  the  Times 


334         WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

to  record  the  efforts  of  those  who  have  brought  a 
weighty  influence  to  bear  on  the  matter.  On  the 
second  day  of  the  debate,  Lecky  made  a  speech  giv- 
ing his  views  and  those  of  the  University  he  repre- 
sented. He  said  he  felt  that  the  number  of  Catholics 
who  received  University  education  was  inadequate, 
although  the  disproportion  between  the  number  of 
Protestant  and  Catholic  students  was  partly  explained 
by  the  fact  that  an  enormous  preponderance  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  population  could  not  afford  Univer- 
sity education,  and  also  that  divinity  students  formed 
a  large  proportion  of  the  Protestant  students,  whilst 
Catholic  divinity  students  were  educated  at  May- 
nooth.  '  Trinity  College,'  he  said  in  the  course  of  his 
speech,  'regretted  that  Catholic  students  did  not 
come  to  it  more  freely,  and  that  they  did  not  think 
the  University  of  Moore  and  Shell,  and  of  the  immense 
majority  of  Catholic  laymen  who  had  played  a  great 
part  in  recent  Irish  history,  good  enough  for  them. 
But  it  recognised  clearly  that  the  time  had  come 
for  some  modifications  in  the  University  system  in 
Ireland,  and  it  only  wished  well  to  the  Government 
in  the  action  which  they  might  take.'  At  the  same 
time,  he  could  not  agree  with  Irish  members  as  to 
the  extent  of  the  grievance.  He  pointed  out  how, 
as  far  back  as  1793,  long  before  the  English  Univer- 
sities had  taken  such  a  step.  Trinity  College  threw 
open  its  degrees  to  the  Catholics,  and  how  at  the 
present  time  'every  post,  from  the  highest  to  the  low- 
est —  every  honour  and  prize  —  was  open  to  every 
denomination  in  Ireland.'  The  Divinity  School  stood 
apart  from  the  rest  of  the  College,  and  had  no  relation 
to  anyone  who  was  not  reading  for  Anglican  orders; 
and  Roman  Catholic  divinity  students  were  amply 
provided  for  at  Maynooth,  which  had  received  a  large 


SPEECH   ON   THE   UNIVERSITY   QUESTION        335 

grant  from  the  Irish  Church  Fund,  It  might  be  justly- 
objected  that  there  was  no  definite  rehgious  teaching 
for  Roman  CathoHc  students  in  Trinity  College,  but 
it  was  notorious  that  the  College  authorities  were 
ready  to  make  for  them  such  provision  as  they  had 
made  for  Presbyterian  students  —  who  were  taught 
by  their  ministers  at  the  expense  of  the  College  —  if 
the  Catholics  would  only  accept  it. 

Personally,  he  owned,  he  was  somewhat  half-hearted 
on  the  question.  In  his  opinion,  'there  could  be  no 
greater  misfortune  for  Ireland  than  that  members  of 
the  two  religions  in  their  early  days  should  be  entirely 
separated;  that  young  men  at  a  time  when  their  hearts 
were  warm,  when  their  enthusiasms  were  at  their 
height,  and  when  they  were  forming  friendships  which 
might  mould  their  future  lives,  should  be  kept  apart 
and  should  know  nothing  of  each  other.  .  .  the  teaching 
of  a  University  did  not  come  merely  from  its  profes- 
sors. An  immense  proportion  came  also  from  the 
stimulus  of  the  students,  and  he  believed  the  more 
they  narrowed  the  area  from  which  that  competition 
was  derived,  the  more  feeble  that  stimulus  would 
become.'  After  going  through  the  history  of  the 
various  unsuccessful  movements  to  legislate  on  the 
subject,  he  laid  down  some  of  the  conditions  essential 
to  the  success  of  any  further  legislation,  the  first  one 
being  that  the  Government  should  make  certain  that 
their  offer  would  be  accepted,  and  he  finally  repeated 
that  if  Trinity  was  left  unmolested  to  do  its  own  work, 
it  'would  certainly  not  play  the  part  of  the  dog  in 
the  manger  or  be  hostile  to  anything  that  might  be 
set  up  for  the  benefit  of  the  Roman  Catholics  in 
Ireland.' 

Lecky's  speech  was  received  with  much  sympathy, 
and  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  who  had  for  many 


336  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

years  been  favourable  to  the  Roman  Catholic  demand, 
expressed  his  general  agreement  with  it.  He  showed, 
however,  that  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe  for  a  settle- 
ment, and  that  it  was  essential,  as  Lecky  had  said, 
not  to  propose  a  scheme  without  being  certain  that 
it  would  be  acceptable.  The  sympathetic  attitude  of 
Mr.  Balfour  was  once  more  recognised,  and  the  matter 
remained  in  abeyance  for  the  time,  the  amendment 
being  withdrawn,  and  the  question  dropped.  Lecky 
received  from  both  Catholics  and  Protestants  expres- 
sions of  gratification  at  the  attitude  he  had  taken  up 
in  regard  to  this  question.  His  predecessor  and  old 
friend.  Lord  Rathmore,  wrote  that  he  thought  the 
speech  *  admirable  in  every  way  —  both  the  think- 
ing and  the  language  exactly  what  was  to  be  de- 
sired for  the  good  name  of  Trinity,  as  well  as  for 
your  own.  You  have  evidently  made  a  great  hit 
and  many  will,  I  am  sure,  wish  you  joy  of  your 
success.'  .  .  . 

The  moderate  tone  of  the  debate  seemed  to  the  L-ish 
Roman  Catholic  archbishops  and  bishops  a  hopeful 
sign  that  the  question  was  now  within  measurable 
distance  of  a  settlement.  In  June  they  held  a  meeting 
at  Maynooth  and  made  an  important  pronouncement. 
They  referred  in  an  appreciative  manner  to  the  vari- 
ous members  who  had  spoken  in  the  debate  on  behalf 
of  Catholic  University  education : 

'We  desire,'  they  said,  'to  mark  in  particular  the 
fair  and  liberal  attitude  taken  up  by  Mr.  Lecky.  His 
own  personal  eminence,  together  with  the  special 
authority  attaching  to  his  statements  as  the  represent- 
ative of  Dublin  University,  lend  importance  to  his 
speech,  in  which  we  very  gladly  observe  a  tone  that 
does  credit  to  himself  and  to  the  distinguished  constit- 
uency which  he  represents.     Naturally  enough,  view- 


FINANCIAL   RELATIONS  337 

ing  the  question  from  a  different  standpoint  from 
ours,  Mr.  Lecky  put  forward  on  the  minor  aspects  of 
the  question  some  views  from  which  we  sliould  cUssent. 
But  we  note  with  very  sincere  pleasure  the  practical 
conclusions  at  which  he  arrived  and  the  expression  of 
his  hope  "that  the  Government  would  see  their  way 
to  gratify  the  wish  of  the  Irish  Catholics." ' 

In  their  statement  they  endeavoured  to  meet  'the 
contingency  which,  as  affecting  the  Government,  Mr. 
Lecky  and  Mr.  Balfour  seemed  to  apprehend,  of  pro- 
posing a  scheme  without  being  tolerably  sure  that 
it  will  be  accepted,'  and  they  agreed  to  a  prepon- 
derance of  laymen  on  the  governing  body;  to  pub- 
lic funds  being  solely  applied  to  secular  teaching; 
to  open  up  degrees,  honours,  and  emoluments  to 
all-comers;  and  to  safeguard  the  position  of  the 
professors,  a  point  upon  which  Lecky  had  specially 
insisted. 

The  question  came  again  before  Parliament  on  July 
9  of  that  year,  when  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury, 
while ,  recognising  the  importance  of  the  statements 
made  by  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  and  endorsing 
the  views  he  had  previously  expressed  in  favour  of  a 
Catholic  University,  did  not  give  much  hope  that  he 
would  be  able  to  introduce  such  a  measure  in  the  fol- 
lowing session,  as  it  was  a  very  contentious  one  and  he 
was  pledged  to  one  important  Bill  for  Ireland  already. 
It  was  well  known  that  Ministers  were  divided  on  the 
subject,  and  that  an  attempt  to  legislate  on  it  would 
break  up  the  Cabinet. 

Another  question  had  now  become  prominent,  that 
of  the  financial  relations  between  England  and  Ireland. 
In  1894  a  Royal  Commission  had  been  appointed  to 
make  a  thorough  investigation  into  this  matter,  both 
as  regards  the  financial  relations  and  the  taxable 
23 


338  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

capacity^  of  the  two  countries.  Their  report  was 
published  in  the  autumn  of  1896,  and  their  conclu- 
sions briefly  were  that  whereas  the  taxable  capacity 
of  Ireland  was  not  more  than  one-twentieth  of  that 
of  Great  Britain,  she  bore  no  less  than  about  one- 
eleventh  part  of  the  taxation,  so  that  she  was  over- 
taxed to  the  extent  of  two  and  three  quarter  millions 
a  year.  Though  Irishmen  had  long  felt  that  there 
was  a  financial  grievance,  the  Report  forcibly  brought 
it  home  to  them.  Irish  Unionists  and  Nationalists 
were  equally  stirred  by  it.  The  grievance  was  a  na- 
tional one,  and  to  obtain  redress  became  a  common 
object.  The  Government,  not  satisfied  with  the  con- 
clusions of  the  Report,  desired  to  appoint  another 
Commission,  but  this  met  with  much  opposition.  A 
Committee  of  men  holding  the  most  various  political 
opinions  was  formed  in  Ireland;  public  meetings  were 
held  all  over  the  country  and  speeches  were  made 
calling  for  redress.  As  this  was  a  non-political  ques- 
tion, Unionist  and  Home  Rule  members  met  in  con- 
ference in  order  to  agree  upon  a  common  line  of  action 
in  Parliament.  Colonel  Saunderson  presided,  and 
Lecky  took  part  in  the  proceedings.  Both  were  sub- 
sequently deputed,  with  Mr.  Healy  and  Mr.  Clancy, 
to  frame  resolutions  for  further  consideration.  The 
question  came  up  for  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
March  29,  on  a  motion  of  Mr.  Blake,  and  was  discussed 
for  three  days.  It  was  not  till  the  last  day  that  Lecky 
had  the  opportunity  of  giving  his  views  on  the  subject. 
He  clearly  showed  that  Ireland  was  entitled  to  have 


'  The  relative  taxable  capac-  the    people    of    each    country 

ity  was  mainly  determined  by  according   to   the   income-tax 

a  comparison  of  the  aggregate  assessment  and  other  tests. 
annual    income    possessed    by 


FINANCIAL   RELATIONS  339 

separate  treatment.  There  had  been  no  substantial 
grievance  before  1853,  when  Mr.  Gladstone  had  im- 
posed the  income-tax,  from  which  she  had  been  up  to 
that  time  exempted.  Mr.  Gladstone  argued  that  by 
repealing  certain  consolidated  duties  which  had  forty 
years  to  run,  Ireland  would  gain,  as  the  income-tax 
charge,  though  a  heavier  charge,  would  only  last  a  few 
years.  The  result  was  that  a  capital  debt  of  four 
millions  was  wiped  out,  but  Ireland  had  since  paid  more 
than  twenty-four  millions  of  income-tax.  Lecky  had 
heard  a  great  deal  about  that  matter  in  early  days,  as 
General  Dunne,  who  had  strongly  opposed  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's measure  in  Parliament,  had  been  an  intimate 
friend  of  his  father.  General  Dunne  had  made  the 
question  his  own,  and  had  after  a  struggle  of  ten  years 
succeeded  in  obtaining  a  Committee  to  inquire  into 
the  question  of  Irish  taxation.  It  was  then  recog- 
nised, and  at  different  times  subsequently,  that  Ire- 
land was  a  separate  fiscal  entity.  Lecky  supported  this 
view  up  to  the  hilt  with  facts  and  arguments : 

'Some  people  seemed  to  consider  Ireland  a  kind  of 
intermittent  and  fluctuating  personahty  —  something 
like  Mr.  Hyde  and  Mr.  Jekyll  —  an  integral  portion 
when  it  was  a  question  of  taxation  and  therefore  en- 
titled to  no  exemptions  —  a  separate  entity  when  it  was 
a  question  of  rating  and  therefore  entitled  to  no  relief. 
.  .  .  There  was  hardly  any  single  subject  of  legisla- 
tion in  which  Ireland  was  not  legislated  for  separately. 
They  had  separate  legislation  about  Church  establish- 
ments, about  land,  pohce,  local  government,  education, 
and  even  in  some  respects  about  marriage.  All  that 
had  gone  on  for  ninety-seven  years  after  the  Union, 
and  therefore  it  was  preposterous  to  say  that  in  asking 
that  Ireland  should  be  legislated  for  separately  in 
financial  matters  they  were  acting  in  a  manner  incon- 
sistent with  the  Union.' 


340  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

The  Government  were  now  proposing  to  appoint  a 
fresh  Commission,  which  he  understood  should  be  sup- 
plementary to  the  former  one.  He  suggested  that 
there  should  be  a  judicial  inquiry  into  the  doctrine  of 
what  constituted  Imperial  taxation  and  into  the  way 
in  which  the  money  in  each  country  was  expended. 
As  for  the  remedy,  Lecky  differed  from  the  National- 
ist members;  he  did  not  think  it  could  be  found  in 
abated  taxation  but  in  an  equivalent  grant  from  the 
Imperial  exchequer.  He  showed  once  more  very  for- 
cibly how  injuriously  the  land  laws  had  affected  Ire- 
land, and  expressed  the  hope  that  the  Government 
would  succeed  in  converting  Ireland  into  a  country 
of  peasant  proprietors,  because  he  believed  that 

'  though  it  would  not  bring  about  a  millennium  in  Ire- 
land, it  was  the  only  way  in  which  they  could  extri- 
cate the  country  from  the  confusion  into  which 
repeated  confiscations  and  breaches  of  contract  had 
brought  it;  but  ...  if  they  did  not  wish  the  peasant 
proprietary  to  be  the  most  ghastly  of  failures  they 
must  produce  in  Ireland  a  higher  level  of  agricultural 
industry  and  agricultural  skill  than  at  present  existed. 
This  could  only  be  done  by  extending  to  Ireland  some 
system  of  agricultural  education  like  that  which 
prevailed  in  Denmark  and  other  countries  of  Europe. 
This,  he  believed,  was  the  direction  which  sooner  or 
later  their  policy  would  inevitably  take,  and  it  was  by 
such  measures  that  any  inequality  that  now  existed 
in  their  taxation  could,  he  thought,  be  best  remedied.' 

This  policy  has  been  carried  out  through  the  ini- 
tiative of  one  for  whom  Lecky  entertained  a  warm 
friendship  and  whom  he  called  '  the  only  constructive 
statesman  in  Ireland,'  Sir  Horace  Plunkett.  As  far 
back  as  1889,  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  had  started  the 
co-operative  movement  in  Ireland;  out  of  it  grew  the 


AGRICULTURAL    RATING    ACT  341 

Irish  Agricultural  Organisation  Society,  which  was 
inaugurated  in  1894.  The  following  year,  in  order 
further  to  develop  the  movement,  he  formed  the  Recess 
Committee,  composed  of  men  of  all  parties.  Lecky  was 
asked  to  join  it,  but  though  he  was  in  full  sympathy 
with  the  object,  other  calls  on  his  time  prevented  him 
taking  an  active  part  in  the  matter.  Investigations 
were  made  by  this  Committee  into  the  agricultural  and 
industrial  conditions  of  a  great  many  European  coun- 
tries, and  the  results  were  summed  up  in  a  valuable 
report  which  was  forwarded  to  the  Chief  Secretary  with 
the  recommendation  that  a  Government  Department 
should  be  created  under  a  Minister  responsible  to  Par- 
liament. This  led  up  to  the  creation  of  the  State 
Department  of  Agriculture  and  Technical  Instruction, 
in  1S99,  of  which  Sir  Horace  Plunkett  was  the  head 
till  the  Liberals  came  into  power. 

Lecky's  speech  on  the  financial  relations  made  a  great 
impression,  as  the  letters  which  he  received  on  the  sub- 
ject showed.  It  was  generally  thought,  wrote  a  legal 
friend  from  Ireland,  'the  speech  of  the  debate.' 

He  had  occasion  to  refer  again  to  the  subject  on  the 
motion  brought  forward,  on  May  6,  by  Mr.  Knox,  an 
Ulster  member,  to  extend  the  English  Agricultural 
Rating  Act  to  Ireland.  Lecky  objected  to  the  Govern- 
ment having  excluded  Ireland  from  the  operation  of 
the  Act,  'the  portion  of  the  Empire  which  was  the 
poorest,  which  was  the  most  purely  agricultural  and 
in  which  local  rates  were  the  most  heavy,  both  abso- 
lutely and  in  proportion  to  the  population,'  and  he 
made  a  forcible  appeal  to  them  to  redress  this  injustice. 
But  though  Irish  members  were  unanimous,  the  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer  was  obdurate  and  the  motion 
was  lost. 

Further  efforts,  however,  were  made.     An  urgent 


342  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

letter  asking  the  Government  to  reconsider  their  posi- 
tion was  addressed  to  Mr.  Balfour  by  twelve  prominent 
Unionist  members,  of  whom  Lecky  was  one.  In  the 
face  of  pressure  brought  to  bear  on  all  sides,  the  Gov- 
ernment could  no  longer  ignore  the  claims  of  Ireland 
and  they  made  a  small  concession.  On  May  21  the 
First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  stated  that  while  in  the 
view  of  the  Government  Ireland  possessed  no  claim 
to  be  treated  in  the  rating  question  on  lines  similar 
to  those  adopted  in  England,  they  proposed  to  deal 
with  the  matter  in  an  Irish  Local  Government  Bill 
to  be  introduced  in  the  following  session,  the  plan 
being  that  by  a  subvention  from  the  Exchequer  the 
landlords  should  be  relieved  of  half  the  poor  rates  and 
the  tenants  of  half  the  county  cess. 

Lord  Dufferin  had  now  returned  home  after  a  bril- 
liant career  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  and  he  was 
making  his  influential  voice  heard  again  in  Irish  poli- 
tics, to  the  great  satisfaction  of  his  friends  and  admirers. 
On  receiving  from  him  a  copy  of  a  speech  about  the 
land  question,  Lecky  wrote: 

House  of  Commons:  May  4,  1897.  — '  Dear  Lord 
Dufferin,  —  I  had  already  cut  your  admirable  speech 
out  of  an  Irish  paper,  and  I  am  delighted  to  have 
another  copy,  but  I  most  earnestly  hope  that  you  will 
have  it  printed  separately  and  largely  distributed. 
I  know  nothing  more  able  on  the  subject,  and  even  if 
it  had  been  far  less  admirably  put,  it  would  have  a 
great  influence  as  coming  from  you.  There  is  some- 
thing I  find  almost  maddening  in  the  gross  and  pal- 
pable dishonesty  of  Irish  land  legislation,  and  it  is  all 
the  worse  as  it  is  now  very  difficult  to  argue  against  it, 
as  all  the  premises  of  dishonesty  have  passed  into  the 
statute-book  and  been  fully  recognised  by  both  par- 
ties. I  do  not  know  whether  this  omnipotent  and 
languid    Government  —  languid    because    omnipotent 


LORD    DUFFERIN'S   VIEWS  343 

—  will  do  anything  of  real  use  in  the  matter.  The 
vestigia  retrorsum  are,  I  fear,  impossible.  Loans  to 
landlords  at  low  interest  and  a  remodelling  of  tithe 
rent-charge  might  do  some  good.  I  suppose,  how- 
ever, that  owing  to  the  general  fall  in  the  rate  of 
interest  the  charges  on  the  more  solvent  estates  have 
during  the  last  few  years  somewhat  diminished.  I  hope 
you  will  be  sometimes  here  in  London  to  help  us. 

'I  wrote  what  I  could  in  my  "Democracy  and  Lib- 
erty" with  a  view  of  bringing  the  injustice  before  the 
pubUc,  and  (except  on  the  question  of  compensation 
for  disturbance)  I  think  my  views  agree  with  yours. 
I  much  object  to  the  references  of  the  new  Commission 
on  the  financial  relations,  which  absolutely  omit  the 
questions  of  comparative  wealth  and  comparative 
progress  from  among  the  elements  of  consideration. 
I  venture  to  send  you  what  I  said  about  it,  restoring 
some  passages  which  the  reporters  omitted.' 

Lord  Dufferin  answered: 

Clandeboye:  May  8,  1897.  —  '  My  dear  Lecky,  —  I 
have  read  your  speech  two  or  three  times  over  with 
the  greatest  admiration.  It  is  so  clear,  so  sober,  and 
so  fair.  I  have  not  taken  any  part  in  the  financial 
relations  controversy  and  do  not  propose  to  do  so, 
for  now  that  the  fresh  Commission  may  be  considered 
a  fait  accompli  '■  there  is  no  alternative  but  to  wait,  at 
all  events  before  we  can  expect  any  great  rehef  to  be 
granted  us.  But  the  conduct  of  the  Government  in 
regard  to  the  non-extension  of  the  Rating  Bill  to  Ire- 
land is  monstrous,  and  I  have  no  patience  with  all 
their  talk  about  Ireland  not  being  a  separate  ''entity," 
as  if  it  had  ever  been  anything  else,  as  you  most  forcibly 
demonstrate.  I  am  so  glad,  too,  that  you  did  not  lose 
the  opportunity  of  scourging  the  infamous  land  legis- 
lation of  1881  and  the  following  years.  In  short, 
from  first  to  last,  I  thought  your  speech  most  admi- 

1  It  was  never  appointed. 


344  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

rable,  and  we  ought  all  to  be  very  grateful  to  you 
for  it.' 

Lecky  had  undertaken  to  move  during  the  session 
the  second  reading  of  the  Irish  Sunday  Closing  Bill, 
the  object  of  which  was  to  make  the  Sunday  Closing 
Act  of  1878  permanent,  to  extend  it  to  the  five  towns 
that  were  exempted  from  its  operations,  and  to  pro- 
hibit throughout  the  country  the  sale  of  intoxicating 
liquor  after  nine  o'clock  on  Saturday  night.  Lecky, 
in  his  speech,  gave  a  history  of  the  movement,  and 
showed  how  efficaciously  the  Sunday  closing  had 
operated  and  how  large  a  consensus  of  public  opinion 
was  in  favour  of  this  Bill.  An  Irish  member  tried  to 
checkmate  him  by  quoting  some  passages  from  the 
'Democracy  and  Liberty,'  but  it  was  not  difficult  to 
show  that  there  was  no  disparity  between  the  views 
expressed  on  this  occasion  and  those  in  his  book.  He 
thought  'there  should  be  as  little  legislative  interfer- 
ence as  possible  with  private  habits,  and  that  they 
ought  never  in  these  questions  to  precede  public  opin- 
ion but  only  to  follow  it  and  even  lag  a  little  behind 
it.  He  believed  measures  of  this  kind  ought  only  to 
be  carried  when  called  for  by  a  large  and  persistent 
majority,  and  even  then  should  be  as  far  as  possible 
tentative  and  gradual.  It  was  because  the  Bill  before 
the  House  seemed  to  him  fully  to  meet  these  require- 
ments that  he  had  undertaken  to  bring  it  forward.' 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  cross-voting,  Mr.  Balfour 
and  Mr.  Morley  voting  for  it;  but  many  Nationalists 
opposed  it,  and  the  second  reading  was  only  carried 
by  a  majority  of  twenty-nine.  The  inadequate  support 
with  which  it  met  in  the  House  gave  it  no  chance  of 
passing  that  year. 

It  was  the  year  of  the  Diamond  Jubilee,  which  was 
celebrated  by  all  the  Queen's  subjects  with  feelings  of 


DIAMOND   JUBILEE  345 

warm  devotion  and  gratitude.  In  the  course  of  it, 
Lecky  had  to  attend  a  number  of  Jubilee  and  other 
public  functions,  beginning  with  a  State  banquet  in 
St.  Patrick's  Hall,  Dublin,  on  March  13.  Lord  Cado- 
gan,  who  wished  to  make  the  dinner  worthy  of  the  occa- 
sion, had  gathered  together  as  far  as  possible  all  that 
was  most  distinguished  and  representative  in  Ireland. 
It  was  a  unique  assembly,  and  the  banquet  worthily 
inaugurated  the  Jubilee  festivities.  The  Queen's  pro- 
cession to  St.  Paul's  on  Jubilee  Day  was  from  its  very 
nature  peculiarly  impressive.  The  manifestations  of 
loyalty  of  the  millions  along  the  Queen's  passage  were 
a  most  moving  sight,  and  the  presence  of  Colonial 
premiers,  Indian  princes,  and  enormous  numbers  of 
troops  —  Indian,  Colonial,  British  —  such  as  had  never 
been  seen  before,  represented  in  an  imposing  manner 
the  united  strength  of  a  great  Empire. 

The  following  day  the  House  of  Commons  availed 
itself  of  an  ancient  privilege,  to  present  in  person  a  loyal 
address  to  the  Queen,  but  by  some  mistake  the  cere- 
mony was  so  curtailed  that  many  of  the  members  who 
followed  the  Speaker  were  unable  to  get  into  the  Royal 
presence.  This  caused  some  dissatisfaction  among  a 
body  of  men  who,  of  all  others,  are  the  most  tenacious 
about  their  rights.  The  Queen,  having  heard  of  this, 
gave  her  faithful  Commons  a  special  garden-party  at 
Windsor,  which  was  one  of  the  most  successful  func- 
tions of  the  year.  She  drove  about  among  her  guests, 
speaking  to  some  of  them  and  showing  a  genial  interest 
in  the  proceedings. 

'The  whole  Jubilee  has  gone  off  admirably,'  Lecky 
wrote  to  Judge  Gowan,  'and  I  am  glad  that  the  Col- 
onies and  India  have  filled,  after  the  Queen,  the  first 
place  in  the  picture.  At  the  last  Jubilee  this  place 
was  more  taken  by  foreign  princes.    I  think  the  Naval 


346  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

Review  has  had  a  great  and  most  pacific  effect.  The 
idea  had  grown  up  that  England  had  no  strength  at 
all  proportionate  to  her  bigness,  and  this  has  now  a 
good  deal  disappeared.  We  have  had  on  the  whole 
a  quiet  session,  and  I  think  the  Government  has  a 
good  deal  strengthened.  Irish  landlords,  however, 
are  being  much  reduced,  and  in  consequence  a  good 
deal  discontented.  We  have  a  very  big  Bill  before 
us  next  session.' 

Among  the  honours  bestowed,  a  Privy  Councillorship 
was  conferred  on  Lecky,  on  account  of  '  your  very  great 
literary  eminence  as  well  as  the  position  you  have 
acquired  in  Parliament,'  wrote  Lord  Salisbury.  The 
nomination  was  received  by  the  public  with  general 
approval.  Innumerable  were  the  warm  letters  of  con- 
gratulation which  he  received  from  all  sides  —  politi- 
cal opponents  as  well  as  friends,  and  the  way  the  honour 
was  conferred  and  the  genuine  satisfaction  which  it 
seemed  to  cause,  could  but  be  gratifying  to  him.* 

'Thank  you  for  your  kind  congratulations,'  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  Booth; '  I  cannot  say  I  care  much  for  the  feathers 
of  life,  but  this  is  at  least  a  quiet,  gentlemanly  thing, 
and  honours  that  come  unasked  for  and  unexpected 
give  some  little  pleasure.' 

Apart  from  the  Jubilee  functions,  he  had  to  attend 
various  public  dinners  and  make  post-prandial  speeches 
in  the  course  of  the  season,  and  he  was  asked  to  preside 
over  the  annual  dinner  of  the  Booksellers'  Provident 


1  A  statesman  —  now  dead  Constitutional  sentiment  and 

—  wrote,     in     congratulating  principle  which  has,  I   think, 

him,  'Apart  and  distinct  from  been    ever    written.     I    have 

your    other    valuable    works,  often  wished  to  tell  you  how 

your  last  book  on  Liberty  and  incomparable    a     friend     and 

Democracy    is    the    one     best  companion  I  have  made  it.' 
storehouse  of  wise  and  noble 


ECCLEFECHAN  347 

Institution,  which  took  place  in  May.  One  of  the  inter- 
esting features  of  the  dinner  was  that  Lord  Roberts, 
who  had  recently  published  his  '  Forty-One  Years  in 
India,'  was  asked  to  reply  to  the  toast  of  Literature. 
It  did  not  often  happen,  as  Lecky  said  in  the  course  of 
his  speech,  that  a  Field-Marshal  was  selected  as  the 
most  appropriate  person  to  speak  for  Literature. 

During  the  summer  holidays  Lecky  went  for  a  few 
weeks'  bracing  to  Scotland,  enjoying  some  beautiful 
coach-driving  and  sails  through  lovely  scenery  and 
very  excellent  air,  and  he  afterwards  spent  some  weeks 
in  Holland,  and  in  the  undisturbed  quiet  of  a  rural  life 
he  wrote  a  good  deal  of  the  '  Map  of  Life.' 

In  October  he  was  again  in  Ireland,  full  of  engage- 
ments of  all  sorts.  He  maintained  that  in  no  other 
country  did  he  find  more  agreeable  and  amusing  society. 
He  spent  some  pleasant  evenings  with  the  Fellows  of 
Trinity  College,  '  anecdotes  flying  about  like  a  perfect 
meteoric  shower,'  as  he  said  on  one  occasion,  and  he 
did  at  the  same  time  a  good  deal  of  serious  reading, 
and  wrote  a  short  review  of  the  private  papers  of  Wil- 
liam Wilberforce  for  Literature}  On  the"  way  home 
from  the  North  of  Ireland  he  and  his  wife  stopped  at 
Carlisle  and  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Carlyle's  birthplace, 
Ecclefechan.  The  house  where  he  was  born  had  been 
turned  into  a  little  museum,  where  some  early  auto- 
graph letters  of  his  were  exhibited.  They  went  to 
Carlyle's  grave,  characteristic  in  its  simplicity,  with 
only  the  names  and  dates  of  birth  and  death  of  himself 
and  his  brother  on  the  same  slab.  A  number  of 
Carlyle's  relations  were  buried  on  either  side,  con- 
spicuous   among    them    his    father,    'James    Carlyle, 


1  Now  the  Literary  Supplement  of  the  Times.     The    review 
appeared  in  the  number  of  October  23. 


348  WILLIAM   EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

mason.'  It  seemed  strange  to  realise  that  out  of  such 
surroundings  came  one  of  the  men  who  most  influenced 
English  thought  in  the  nineteenth  century.  But 
'genius,'  as  Lecky  says,  'is  like  the  wind  that  bloweth 
where  it  listeth.'^ 

The  year  1897  was  the  centenary  of  the  death  of 
Burke.  Lecky's  study  of  Burke  was  fresh  in  the  mem- 
ory of  those  who  had  read  his  '  History  of  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century,'  and  when  Dublin  University  resolved 
to  commemorate  the  centenary  of  one  of  its  greatest 
alumni,  the  Provost  asked  Lecky  to  propose  the 
memory  of  Burke  on  the  occasion,  and  he  could  not 
refuse.  On  December  7,  a  State  banquet  was  given 
in  the  dining-hall  of  Trinity  College,  at  which  the 
Provost,  Dr.  Salmon,  presided  and  the  Lord  Lieuten- 
ant was  present.  Burke's  fine  portrait  had  been  trans- 
ferred from  the  examination  hall  and  placed,  wreathed 
in  palms,  before  the  guests.  There  was  a  magnifi- 
cent display  of  flowers  and  old  College  silver  on  the 
table  'and  the  doctors  in  their  red  gowns  gave  much 
colour  to  the  scene.'  But  the  chief  interest  was  the 
speaking,  which  was,  as  usual  on  such  occasions  in 
Ireland,  of  a  very  high  order. 

The  Provost,  Dr.  Salmon,  in  his  original  and  skilful 
way,  paid  an  appreciative  tribute  to  the  Lord  Lieuten- 
ant and  to  the  ofRce  which  he  held;  and  Lord  Cadogan 
in  his  reply  showed  how  much  he  had  identified  him- 
self with  everything  that  concerned  the  real  welfare 
of  Ireland.  Lecky  spoke  to  the  memory  of  Burke  in 
the  following  words: 

'  I  esteem  it  a  great  honour  to  be  asked  to  speak  on 
the  memory  of  Burke  in  his  own  University,  but  it  is 
an  honour  which  carries  with  it  no  small  embarrass- 


'  Historical  and  Political  Essays,  p.  12. 


SPEECH    ON    BURKE  349 

ment,  Burke  is  a  man  of  such  encyclopaedic  intellect; 
his  splendid  genius  touches  so  many  and  such  various 
fields  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  deal  with  it  ade- 
quately except  at  a  length  which  would  be  wholly 
unsuited  to  an  after-dinner  speech,  and  I  have  myself 
the  difficulty  of  having  already  expressed  my  thoughts 
on  the  subject  in  a  long  and  elaborate  analysis  of  his 
merits  and  defects. 

'  I  have  indeed  long  believed  that  Mackintosh  in  no 
degree  exaggerated  when  he  described  him  as  the 
greatest  of  all  modern  political  philosophers.  I 
believe  that  you  will  learn  more  from  him  than  from 
any  other  —  more  than  from  Machiavelli  or  Montes- 
quieu —  more  than  from  Story  or  Tocqueville  or  Maine. 
For  my  own  part,  I  doubt  whether  there  is  any  other 
writer  in  all  English  literature  to  whom  I  am  so  deeply 
indebted.  I  was  looking  only  the  other  day  at  a  very 
humble  little  copy  of  the  ''  Reflections  on  the  French 
Revolution,"  marked  and  annotated  at  almost  every 
page,  which  for  many  years  had  been  my  favourite 
pocket  companion  in  long,  solitary  mountain  walks  in 
Ireland  and  Switzerland,  and  I  was  somewhat  startled 
to  find  that  the  year  when  I  acquired  it  was  as  far  back 
as  1855  —  the  very  year  in  which  I  entered  Trinity 
College. 

'And  yet  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  Burke  is 
not  one  of  those  great  men  of  calm  and  lucid  judgment 
who  stand  out  in  history  Uke  some  Greek  temple, 
faultless  in  its  symmetry  and  its  proportion.  He  was 
a  man  of  strongly  contrasted  fights  antl  shades,  of 
transcendent  gifts  united  with  very  manifest  defects. 
His  intellect  was  in  the  highest  degree  both  penetrat- 
ing and  comprehensive.  He  saw  further  and  he  saw 
deeper  than  any  of  his  contemporaries,  and  none  of 
them  could  illuminate  a  subject  with  such  a  splendour 
of  eloquence  and  such  a  wealth  of  knowledge  and 
thought.  But  his  judgment  was  often  obscured  by 
violent  gusts  of  passion,  by  the  force  of  an  overmaster- 


350  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

ing  and  almost  ungovernable  imagination  —  which 
sometimes  seemed  not  merely  to  adorn  but  to  trans- 
figure what  it  touched  —  by  violent  personal  likings 
and  dislikings.  He  was  very  deficient  in  that  inesti- 
mable gift  of  tact  which  more  than  any  other  leads  to 
success  in  hfe.  Goldsmith  accused  him  of  giving  up 
to  party  what  was  meant  for  mankind,  but  in  judging 
this  accusation  there  are  two  things  to  be  remembered. 
One  is  that  no  other  writer  has  shown  more  powerfully 
than  Burke  the  absolute  necessity  of  strong  party 
discipline  under  a  parhamentary  government  if  the 
parliamentary  machine  is  to  work  for  the  good  of  the 
nation,  and  that  in  the  early  part  of  his  career  one  of 
the  great  evils  to  be  encountered  was  party  anarchy 
and  disintegration.  The  other  is  that  no  man  ever 
made  a  greater  sacrifice  of  party  than  Burke  did  when, 
on  the  occasion  of  the  French  Revolution,  his  party 
in  his  opinion  was  acting  in  opposition  to  the  real 
interests  of  his  country.  Still,  in  more  than  one  page 
of  his  hfe  we  have  to  deplore  the  violence  with  which 
he  flung  himself  into  party  quarrels  and  the  extreme 
intemperance  of  his  language.  His  judgment  of  the 
French  Revolution  was,  I  believe,  far  more  profound 
and  far-seeing  than  that  of  his  contemporaries,  but  it 
cannot  reasonably  be  denied  that  he  greatly  under- 
rated the  faults  and  exaggerated  the  merits  of  the  Gov- 
ernment that  preceded  it.  His  crusade  for  the  redress 
of  the  wrongs  of  India  is  a  striking  example  of  a  poli- 
tician devoting  long  years  of  thankless  toil  to  the  ser- 
vice of  those  whom  he  had  never  seen  and  who  could 
never  reward  him,  and  it  appreciably  raised  in  Eng- 
land the  sense  of  our  duties  to  other  races;  but  modern 
research  has  abundantly  shown  that  Burke  was  often 
misled  and  did  grave  injustice  to  Warren  Hastings 
and  to  the  other  founders  of  our  Indian  Empire.  He 
attained  to  almost  the  highest  perfection  the  beauty 
of  style,  and  his  works  are  full  of  pages  of  an  eloquence 
beside  which  the  finest  passages  of  his  pohtical  con- 


BURKE   AND   DEMOCRACY  351 

temporaries  seem  feeble  and  commonplace  rhetoric, 
but  they  are  also  often  disfigured  by  exaggerated 
invective  and  gross  faults  of  taste. 

'  Nor  can  Burke  be  said  to  be  in  real  harmony  with 
our  modern  type  of  government.  His  conception  of 
politics  was  indeed  widely  different  from  that  which 
now  generally  prevails.  He  was  as  far  as  possible 
from  a  democratic  statesman.  He  beheved  that 
pure  democracy  would  always  in  the  long  run  prove 
subversive  of  property,  subversive  of  true  freedom, 
subversive  of  all  stability  in  the  State.  He  believed 
much  more  than  is  now  the  fashion  in  the  difficulties 
and  dangers  of  government,  and  while  strenuously 
maintaining  that  the  welfare  of  the  whole  community 
is  the  true  end  of  pohtics,  he  beheved  that  this  could 
only  be  attained  by  a  strong  representation  of  intelli- 
gence, property,  and  classes,  by  preserving  a  balance 
of  power  in  the  State,  by  carefully  maintaining  its  con- 
servative elements.  He  believed  there  w'as  no  greater 
folly  or  crime  than  to  bestow  political  power  on  those 
who  were  certain  to  misuse  it.  He  utterly  repudiated 
the  notion  that  the  same  degrees  of  liberty,  the  same 
franchises,  the  same  institutions  were  good  for  all 
nations  and  stages  of  civihsation,  and  that  pohtical 
institutions  rest  on  natural  rights  and  not  on  expedi- 
ency. He  was  prepared  to  tolerate  any  amount  of 
political  anomalies  or  inequalities  if  only  they  worked 
well.  His  idea  of  pohtical  reform  was  not  that  of 
wide,  comprehensive,  symmetrical,  and  as  the  French 
say  ''  logical "  measures,  but  rather  of  constant  adapta- 
tions, gradual,  tentative,  and  cautious,  arising  out  of 
the  special  circumstances  of  the  nation,  correcting 
positive  evils,  meeting  new  wants  as  they  rose  and  care- 
fully following  pubhc  opinion.  He  beheved  that  an 
appetite  for  organic  change  is  one  of  the  worst  evils 
that  can  befall  the  State.  He  carried  to  the  highest 
point  the  reverence  for  old  institutions,  habits,  and 
traditions,  for  what  he  called  the  'great  influencing 


352  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

prejudices  of  mankind,'  and  he  believed  that  anything 
which  tended  to  cut  off  the  nation  from  its  past  and 
make  it  discontented  with  its  institutions  was  almost 
the  sure  precursor  to  its  decline.  While  maintaining 
that  a  member  of  ParUament  should  always  consider 
himself  as  a  trustee,  he  maintained  also  that  he  should 
never  suffer  himself  to  sink  into  a  mere  delegate,  abdi- 
cating his  independence  of  judgment  and  accepting 
binding  instructions  from  his  constituents. 

*  All  this  is  very  aUen  from  the  pohtical  sentiments 
of  our  day,  but  anyone  who  will  be  at  pains  to  exam- 
ine the  subject  will  convince  himself  that  these  views 
governed  the  politics  of  Burke  at  every  period  of  his 
life.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  when  the  great  explo- 
sion of  democracy  took  place  at  the  French  Revolu- 
tion he  wrote  more  on  the  evils  of  democracy  than  in 
former  years,  but  there  is,  I  beheve,  no  real  ground 
for  the  notion  of  Mr.  Buckle  that  his  life  was  divided 
into  two  sharply  contrasted  periods,  and  the  views  I 
have  enumerated  may  all  be  found  in  his  earliest  works. 
They  were,  however,  coupled  with  a  constant  desire 
for  administrative  reform.  No  statesman  maintained 
more  strongly  that  the  welfare  of  the  whole  people  is 
the  true  end  of  politics,  and  that  the  true  task  of  the 
statesman  is  to  follow  and  not  to  precede  pubhc  opin- 
ion. Adam  Smith  declared  that  he  was  the  only  man 
he  knew  who  had  anticipated  his  views  of  political 
economy,  and  on  all  such  questions  he  was  far  in 
advance  of  his  age.  He  was  one  of  the  first  and  greatest 
of  our  economical  reformers.  He  was  a  strenuous 
advocate  of  a  free  press,  at  a  time  when  it  was  far  less 
recognised  than  at  present,  and  although  he  was 
utterly  opposed  to  any  organic  change  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  Parliament  he  was  a  warm  supporter  of  a  crowd 
of  measures  for  purifying  its  abuses.  He  advocated 
Grenville's  Bill  for  the  better  trial  of  contested  elec- 
tions, the  abolition  of  corrupt  sinecures,  the  pubUca- 
tion  of  the  names  of  voters  in  Parhament,  the  right 


Burke's  political  opinions  353 

of  parliamentary  reporting.  He  placed  the  authority 
of  the  House  of  Commons  very  high,  but  when  at  the 
time  of  the  Middlesex  election  the  House  endeavoured 
to  create  a  new  disability  by  maintaining  that  a  mem- 
ber who  had  been  expelled  by  the  House  could  not  be 
re-elected,  Burke  was  one  of  the  foremost  defenders  of 
the  rights  of  the  electors.  On  all  these  subjects  he  was 
an  advanced  Liberal.  In  the  American  crisis  he  advo- 
cated a  policy  of  concession  which,  if  it  had  been 
carried  out,  would  almost  certainly  have  averted,  or 
at  least  deferred,  the  Revolution.  He  was  the  most 
powerful  opponent  of  the  commercial  restrictions 
which  during  the  eighteenth  century  crushed  Irish 
industry,  and  he  lost  his  seat  for  Bristol  through  his 
advocacy  of  Irish  free  trade.  The  abohtion  of  the 
penal  laws  against  Roman  Cathohcs,  the  better  educa- 
tion of  the  CathoUc  population  and  their  introduction 
into  all  the  privileges  of  the  Constitution,  were  among 
the  objects  he  most  steadily  pursued.  He  wrote  on 
the  subject  as  far  back  as  1765,  and  it  was  one  of  the 
very  last  that  occupied  his  thoughts.  Three  things 
he  always  dreaded  in  Ireland  —  as  the  greatest  calam- 
ities that  could  befall  her  —  the  permanent  separa- 
tion of  Protestants  and  Catholics  into  two  distinct 
nations;  a  class  warfare  detaching  the  mass  of  the 
Irish  people  from  the  influence  of  property  and  edu- 
cation; and  a  spirit  of  disloyalty  leading  to  separation 
from  Great  Britain.  In  almost  the  last  letter  he  ever 
wrote  he  said  "  Great  Britain  would  be  ruined  by  the 
separation  of  Ireland,  but  as  there  are  degrees  even  in 
ruin  it  would  fall  the  most  heavily  on  Ireland.  By 
such  a  separation  Ireland  would  become  the  most  com- 
pletely undone  country  in  the  world;  the  most 
wretched,  the  most  distracted,  and  in  the  end  the 
most  desolate  part  of  the  habitable  globe." 

'  It  is  not,  however,  by  his  active  political  career 
that  Burke  now  hves.  If  this  had  been  his  only  title 
to  fame  more  than  one  of  his  contemporaries  would 

24 


354  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

have  surpassed  him.  He  was  never  a  Cabinet  Minister 
or  the  Leader  of  the  Opposition.  He  did  not  play  the 
same  commanding  part  in  Imperial  affairs  as  Chatham 
or  as  Chatham's  illustrious  son,  nor  could  he  count 
upon  the  same  weight  of  party  or  popular  support  as 
Charles  Fox.  It  is  in  the  profound  wisdom  and  the 
transcendent  beauty  of  his  writings  on  all  political 
subjects  that  he  stands  alone.  In  this  he  has  no 
rival,  and  no  approach  to  a  rival  among  his  contempo- 
raries. If  I  might  venture  to  give  an  advice  to  those 
who  are  now  at  the  age  when  opinions  are  forming, 
and  when  hfe,  for  good  or  ill,  is  taking  its  character 
and  its  course,  I  could  give  them  no  better  advice 
than  to  make  a  serious  and  thorough  study  of  the  writ- 
ings of  Burke.  Do  not  confine  yourselves  solely  to 
those  which  are  best  known  —  to  the  "  Reflections  on 
the  French  Revolution,"  the  "  Appeal  from  the  New 
to  the  Old  Whigs,"  the  "Letters  on  a  Jacobin  Peace" 
or  to  the  great  rhetorical  passages  in  his  "Speeches" 
which  are  so  often  quoted.  Study  his  minor  pamphlets 
—  his  letters  on  Irish  affairs,  his  own  notes  for  his 
speeches,  and  the  admirable  pages  he  has  written  on 
the  true  province  and  limitations  of  government. 
Study  thoroughly  those  four  most  admirable  volumes 
of  his  correspondence  which  were  published  by  Lord 
Fitzwilliam,  and  which  in  my  opinion  contain  some  of 
the  best  lessons  of  political  wisdom  in  the  language. 
No  other  pohtical  writer  has  so  constantly  associated 
transient  or  ephemeral  controversies  with  eternal 
truths,  or  has  brought  to  the  study  of  politics  such  a 
profound  insight  into  human  nature  or  such  a  wide 
range  of  acquired  knowledge.  No  other  writer  saw 
so  clearly  the  obscure,  distant,  indirect  consequences 
of  measures,  or  penetrated  so  habitually  to  the  bed- 
rock of  principle  on  which  political  systems  rest. 
Burke  is  sometimes  wrong,  but  he  is  never  superficial. 
In  weighing  the  various  arguments  of  a  case  his  judg- 
ment is  sometimes  at  fault,  but  the  elements  of  the 


BURKE    AT   TRINITY   COLLEGE  355 

problem  are  almost  always  there.  He  is  pre-eminent 
among  the  small  class  of  writers  who  teach  men  to 
think  and  enlarge  our  knowledge  not  merely  of  politics 
but  of  human  nature. 

'  Nor  is  he  less  valuable  from  the  purely  literary  point 
of  view.  In  one  of  his  letters  from  this  University 
he  complains  that  in  the  study  of  the  ancient  writers 
too  much  attention  was  paid  to  the  mere  language  and 
not  enough  to  the  meaning  it  conveyed.  Burke  was 
one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  words,  but  he  was  essen- 
tially great  because  with  him  language  was  never 
for  a  moment  divorced  from  meaning.  Hardly  any 
other  writer  since  Shakespeare  had  such  a  complete 
mastery  of  the  English  tongue,  its  richness,  its  vivid- 
ness, and  its  force.  If  you  desire  to  write  well,  few 
things  will  help  you  more  than  a  careful  study  of 
his  works. 

'  It  is  surely  right  that  in  Trinity  College  we  should 
commemorate  this  great  man,  for  he  was  pre-eminently 
one  of  our  own.  Swift  lived  here  for  a  longer  time, 
but  his  college  career  was  neither  brilhant  nor  happy, 
and  it  was  not  till  long  after  he  had  left  us  that  his 
splendid  genius  began  to  flower.  Goldsmith  entered 
college  the  same  year  as  Burke,  but  he  was  one  of  the 
idlest  of  students,  and  I  am  afraid  the  "  Deserted  Vil- 
lage" and  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield"  might  have  been 
equally  written  if  he  had  never  been  sent  here.  But 
Burke  certainly  owed  much  to  us.  In  that  charming 
picture  of  Irish  eighteenth-century  hfe,  the  Leadbeater 
Papers,  you  will  find  many  letters  to  the  son  of  his  old 
schoolmaster  Shackleton,  written  from  this  place, 
describing  his  Hfe  here.  We  claim  him  as  the  founder 
of  our  Historical  Society,  and  it  was  certainly  here 
that  he  first  practised  the  art  of  debating,  of  which 
he  became  so  great  a  master.  He  obtained  a  scholar- 
ship, and  in  addition  to  the  regular  studies  of  the  Uni- 
versity he  laid  here  the  foundation  of  his  vast  and 
multifarious  reading.     In  one  of  his  letters  he  men- 


356  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE    LECKY 

tions  that  in  the  middle  of  his  college  course  he  was 
accustomed  to  spend  nearly  every  day  three  hours  in 
reading  in  our  great  hbrary. 

*  He  was  not  only  a  very  great  man  but  emphatically 
a  good  one.  Pure,  simple,  modest,  laborious,  and 
retiring  in  his  private  life,  a  warm  and  steady  friend, 
his  life  was  full  of  acts  of  unostentatious  beneficence, 
and  the  depth  of  his  affections  and  the  strength  of 
his  moral  principles  appear  in  every  portion  of  his 
hfe.  His  life  was  far  from  a  happy  one.  He  knew  the 
bitterness  of  neglect,  poverty,  debt,  the  disappointment 
of  many  expectations,  the  long  struggle  of  an  almost 
hopeless  opposition;  and  the  clouds  of  a  great  private 
bereavement  and  of  public  calamity  hung  darkly 
around  his  closing  hours.  His  public  career  was  swept 
by  many  storms,  and  was  disfigured  by  some  errors, 
but  the  more  it  is  studied  the  more  evident  it  appears 
that  it  was  governed  in  every  period  by  a  sincere  and 
disinterested  patriotism.  No  sordid  motives,  no  desire 
for  mere  popularity  ever  drew  him  aside.  The  chief 
causes  of  his  errors  were  of  another  and  a  nobler 
kind  —  exaggerated  party  loyalty,  an  excessive  sensi- 
bility; a  compassion  for  the  suffering  of  others  and  a 
burning  hatred  of  oppression  and  wrong  that  some- 
times became  so  overmastering  that  they  carried  him 
beyond  all  the  bounds  of  reason  and  moderation.  It 
was  those  who  knew  him  best  who  admired  him  most. 
Of  the  many  tributes  that  were  paid  to  his  memory 
none  appear  to  me  more  touching  than  the  few  simple 
hues  which  Canning  wrote  to  a  friend  on  hearing  of 
his  death.  "  Burke  is  dead.  ...  He  had  among  all 
his  great  qualities  that  for  which  the  world  did  not 
give  him  ^sufficient  credit,  of  creating  in  those  about 
him  very  strong  attachments  and  affections  as  well 
as  the  unbounded  admiration  which  I  every  day  am 
more  and  more  convinced  was  his  due.  .  .  .  He  is  the 
man  that  will  mark  this  age,  marked  as  it  is  itself  by 
events,  to  all  time."' 


MANSION    HOUSE    SPEECH  357 

Professor  Dowden  followed  with  an  eloquent  tribute 
to  Burke.  Both  speeches,  said  the  Dublin  Daily 
Express,  would  probably  take  a  permanent  place  in 
the  literature  that  clusters  round  the  great  career  of 
Burke.  Dr.  Mahaffy  proposed  the  Historical  Society, 
which  had  been  founded  by  Burke  and  had  initiated 
the  celebration,  and  he  recalled  the  time  when  he  had 
'the  intellectual  treat  of  hearing  the  debates  carried 
on  night  after  night  by  the  most  brilliant  group  of 
men  that  he  supposed  ever  came  together  in  the 
Society  —  David  Plunket,  Edward  Gibson,  William 
Lecky,  Gerald  Fitzgibbon,  and  by  no  means  least, 
Thomas  Dudley,  long  since  dead,  a  noble  victim  of 
his  intense  devotion  to  the  poor  and  the  sick  under 
his  charge.' 

The  auditor,  Mr.  Irwin,  gave  some  curious  details 
about  Burke's  undergraduate  days  in  connexion  with 
the  club  —  the  parent  of  the  Historical  Society  — 
which  he  had  founded. 

The  day  after  the  Burke  celebration  Lecky  had  to 
speak  on  the  financial  relations  at  a  large  meeting  at 
the  Dublin  Mansion  House.  Unionists  and  Home 
Rulers  from  various  parts  of  Ireland  had  come  to- 
gether to  give  their  views  on  financial  reform  based  on 
the  findings  of  the  Commission.  Lecky  summed  up  the 
opinions  of  the  greatest  financial  experts  about  the 
disproportion  between  the  taxation  and  the  taxable 
capacity  of  Ireland,  and  he  maintained  that  Unionists 
especially  should  resist  the  assertion  that  Ireland  had 
no  right  to  separate  treatment.  About  the  remedies 
he  spoke  with  his  usual  moderation.  '  Let  us  try  not 
to  injure  a  good  cause  by  exaggerated  statements.  .  .  . 
In  my  own  judgment  the  real  significance  of  this 
movement  is  that  the  report  of  the  Commission  estab- 
lishes a  strong  and  equitable  claim  for  the  expenditure 


358  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

of  a  larger  amount  of  Imperial  money  in  developing 
Irish  resources/  and  he  showed  that  much  had  already 
been  accomplished  in  that  direction. 

He  had  looked  forward  to  this  speech  with  a  good 
deal  of  alarm,  feeling  that  he  was,  as  often  happened, 
between  two  stools,  and  that  a  Mansion  House  meeting 
would  be  naturally  addicted  to  extremes,  but  he 
wanted  to  define  his  own  position  clearly,  and  he 
wrote  afterwards  that  he  had  been  'most  kindly 
Hstened  to,  though  taking  a  more  moderate  view  than 
others.' 


CHAPTER  XIV 

1898-1900. 

Irish  University  Question  —  Irish  Local  Government  Bill  — 
Centenary  of  the  Rebellion  —  Introduction  to  Carlyle's 
'  French  Revolution '  — '  Mr.  Gregory's  Letterbox '  —  Eng- 
land and  Germany  —  England  and  the  United  States  — 
Holland  —  Cannes  —  DubUn  —  Alexandra  College  —  In- 
troduction to  the  revised  edition  of  'Democracy  and 
Liberty '  —  Portrait  of  Mr.  Gladstone  —  Distress  in  the 
West  of  Ireland  —  Old  Age  Pensions  Committee  —  Report 
—  Article  on  Old  Age  Pensions  in  the  For  urn  —  Irish  Liter- 
ary Theatre  —  Scotland  —  Holland  —  Completion  of  the 
'  Map  of  Life '  —  South  African  War  —  Moral  Aspects  of  the 
War  —  Florence  —  Financial  Relations  —  Defence  of  T.C.D. 
— Dean  Milman  —  Queen  Victoria's  Visit  to  Ireland  —  Irish 
Debates  —  Holiday  in  Ireland  —  Unionist  Dissatisfaction 
— ^  General  Election  —  Spiddal  —  University  Election. 

The  demand  for  a  Catholic  University  had  been  kept 
to  the  front  since  the  last  meeting  of  Parliament,  and 
was  being  supported  on  various  platforms  throughout 
Ireland.  In  January  1898  a  large  and  representative 
meeting  was  held  in  the  Dublin  Mansion  House,  where, 
among  others,  a  letter  from  Lecky  was  read  which 
summed  up  his  views  and  was  largely  quoted. 

When  Parliament  met  on  February  8  the  question 
was  again  brought  forward  in  an  amendment  on  the 
Address. 

Colonel  Saunderson,  the  Irish  Unionist  leader,  speak- 
ing for  Ulster  strongly  opposed  it,  and  suggested  that 

359 


360  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

the  question  might  divide  the  Unionist  party.  Lecky 
deprecated  this  and  declared  that  he  did  not  wish  to 
press  for  an  Irish  University  Bill  in  a  year  crowded 
with  Irish  Local  Government  and  other  matters,  or 
to  embarrass  the  Government,  which  had  done  more 
than  any  other  for  a  long  time  past  to  bring  the  ques- 
tion within  the  range  of  practical  politics.  He  had, 
however,  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Catholic 
demand  was  a  very  real  one,  as  all  the  memorials 
signed  by  the  classes  who  could  provide  University 
education  for  their  sons  had  shown.  The  bishops 
had  condemned  unsectarian  education  and  the  laity 
followed  the  orders  of  the  priests.  He  had  no  wish 
for  increased  denominational  education,  but  he  was 
convinced  that  it  was  a  duty  to  enable  Roman  Catholic 
students  to  compete  in  all  respects  with  their  Protes- 
tant countrymen  on  an  equal  footing.  He  laid  great 
stress  on  the  intention  expressed  by  some  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  prelates  to  send  candidates  for  the  priesthood 
to  a  Catholic  University,  and  he  gave  some  curious  his- 
torical facts  about  that  aspect  of  the  question.  Hely 
Hutchinson,  a  Provost  of  Trinity  College  in  the  last 
century,  wanted  a  Catholic  as  well  as  a  Protestant 
divinity  school  in  Trinity  College,  maintaining  that  it 
was  of  the  very  first  political  importance  that  the 
Catholic  priesthood  should  not  be  educated  apart 
from  their  fellow-countrymen;  but  this  was  not  car- 
ried out,  and  in  1795  the  Irish  Parliament  established 
Maynooth.  But,  said  Lecky,  'if  even  at  this  later  day 
prelates  are  prepared  to  give  the  priesthood  a  higher 
University  education  in  common  with  laymen,  great 
good  would  result,  and  I  for  my  part  earnestly  hope 
the  Government  will  see  their  way  to  do  what  they 
can  to  assist  them.'  The  debate  went  on  during  two 
days,  and  showed  as  before  that  there  was  much  opposi- 


IRISH   UNIVERSITY   EDUCATION  361 

tion  in  various  quarters.  Mr.  Balfour  once  more 
expressed  his  strong  sympathy  with  the  wishes  of  the 
Roman  CathoUcs,  but  he  made  it  clear  that  he  could 
not  'solve  the  question'  unless  he  had  his  party 
behind  him,  and  the  amendment  was  withdrawn.  The 
question,  however,  continued  to  be  discussed  in  the 
country.  A  letter  from  Mr.  Balfour  to  one  of  his 
constituents,  expressing  his  views  on  the  subject, 
attracted  much  attention.  These  views  in  some 
respects  differed  from  Lecky's,  for  Mr.  Balfour  em- 
phasised the  Protestant  character  of  Trinity  College, 
and  he  also  thought  that  it  would  not  be  to  its  ad- 
vantage if,  through  a  great  influx  of  Roman  Catholic 
students,  it  were  to  lose  that  character.  Lecky  al- 
ways upheld  the  wholly  unsectarian  character  of  his 
University,  and  he  believed  that  the  number  of  Catho- 
lic students,  though  it  should  certainly  be  larger  than 
it  was,  would  from  the  nature  of  the  case  always  be 
much  more  limited  than  that  of  the  Protestants. 

Dr.  Salmon,  the  Provost  of  Trinity  College,  felt 
impelled  by  Mr.  Balfour's  letter  to  express  his  views, 
and  he  contributed  to  the  controversy  a  remarkable 
article  which  appeared  in  the  Contemporary  Review 
of  April  1899.  With  all  the  experience  and  knowledge 
at  his  command,  he  maintained  the  absolutely  unsec- 
tarian character  of  Dublin  University,  including  its 
'atmosphere,'  and  he  declined  on  behalf  of  Trinity 
to  become  one  of  three  sectarian  Universities,  accord- 
ing to  one  of  the  proposed  schemes.  Whatever  else 
was  done  Trinity  would  not  give  up  its  unsectarian 
character,  nor  did  he  think  it  would  be  wise  to  set  up 
an  unsectarian  University  for  the  benefit  of  Roman 
Catholics  instead  of  frankly  giving  them  what  they 
asked  for.  '  It  is  long,'  wrote  Lecky  to  the  Provost, 
'  since  I  have  read  a  better  specimen  either  of  reasoning 


362  WILLIAM   EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

or  of  literature/  and  a  few  days  after  he  wrote  in 
answer  to  the  Provost: 

Brighton:  April  4,  1899.  —  '  I  do  not  think  you  have 
the  least  reason  to  regi'et  that  you  had  to  do  your 
article  hastily.  It  could  hardly,  I  think,  have  been 
better  done,  and  if  you  have  in  some  degree  under- 
stated your  case,  this,  in  my  judgment  at  least,  is 
one  of  the  things  which  always  adds  real  force  to  con- 
troversial writing.  I  always  aim  at  this  myself.  .  .  . 
I  do  not  think  there  is  the  least  possibility  of  anything 
being  done  this  session  about  the  University  ques- 
tion, and  the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  speech  has  put  it 
off  for  a  long  time.  I  myself  think  that  if  anything  in 
the  sectarian  form  should  hereafter  be  done,  it  ought 
to  be  in  an  additional  grant  to  the  Stephen's  Green 
establishment.  I  think,  too,  that  the  T.C.D.  position 
would  be  a  good  deal  strengthened  if  you  had  a  Ro- 
man Cathohc  professor  to  teach  his  own  people  their 
theology,  ecclesiastical  history,  and  moral  philosophy. 
Perhaps  if  the  bishops  despair  of  getting  a  University 
for  themselves,  the  time  may  come  in  which  they  may 
withdraw  their  veto  from  T.C.D.  and  allow  students 
to  go  there  on  the  understanding  that  they  can  get 
this  amount  of  distinctive  teaching.' 

The  principal  measure  of  the  session  of  1898  was  the 
Irish  Local  Government  Bill.  The  Irish  Secretary, 
Mr.  Gerald  Balfour,  introduced  it  on  February  21 
with  a  speech  which  was  on  the  whole  well  received 
by  all  parties.  The  chief  provisions  of  the  Bill  were 
that  it  abolished  the  Grand  Juries  and  transferred 
their  powers  partly  to  county  councils  and  partly 
to  county  courts;  and  that,  as  the  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  had  promised  the  previous  year,  it  gave 
relief  out  of  the  Exchequer  to  landlords  and  tenants 
for  half  the  poor  rate  and  county  cess.  In  the  course 
of  the  debates  on  the  second  reading,  Lecky  gave 


IRISH   LOCAL  GOVERNMENT   BILL  363 

his  views  on  the  general  aspect  of  the  Bill.  He  agreed 
that  to  establish  local  government  on  a  democratic 
basis,  corresponding  in  the  main  lines  with  local  gov- 
ernment in  England  and  Scotland,  had  become  politi- 
cally necessary,  though  if  the  question  was  considered 
on  its  own  merits  apart  from  all  pledges  and  political 
necessities,  he  would  not  have  supported  it.  He  be- 
lieved that  Ireland  was  as  little  suited  for  democracy  as 
almost  any  country  in  Europe,  and  he  did  not  believe 
in  the  common  doctrine  that  the  same  institutions 
were  adapted  to  countries  so  profoundly  different  as 
England  and  Ireland.  He  regretted  the  abolition  of 
the  Grand  Juries,  which  most  good  judges  considered 
to  have  worked  extremely  well,  but  it  was  impossible 
to  resist  the  change,  and  he  duly  recognised  the  safe- 
guards that  had  been  placed  on  the  new  bodies,  such 
as  keeping  the  control  of  the  police  out  of  their  hands 
and  maintaining  the  rule  of  excluding  from  them  min- 
isters of  religion  of  all  denominations.  He  wished,  how- 
ever, that  the  safeguards  were  increased,  and  when  the 
Bill  was  discussed  in  Committee  he  moved  an  amend- 
ment, giving  expression  to  the  wish  of  a  great  many 
public  bodies  and  private  persons  in  Ireland,  that  the 
Government  should  keep  the  control  and  management 
of  the  lunatic  asylums  in  their  own  hands  and  not 
throw  the  care  of  this  large,  poor  and  unhappily 
increasing  class  of  persons  upon  perfectly  new  and 
inexperienced  bodies.  By  keeping  the  asylums  under 
State  control  they  would  be  following  the  example  of 
nearly  all  the  great  democracies  of  the  world.  The 
Irish  Poor  Law  guardians  were  a  body  most  closely 
resembling  the  future  county  councils,  and  their  medi- 
cal patronage  had  been  marked  by  more  abuses  per- 
haps than  any  other  class  of  patronage  in  Ireland. 
The  amendment  was  lost,  but  the  efficiency  of  the 


364  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

medical  officers  was  subsequently  secured  by  an 
amendment  strongly  supported  by  Lecky  —  that  only 
those  should  be  selected  who  had  served  for  no  less  than 
five  years  in  an  asylum  for  the  treatment  of  the  insane. 
Lecky  closely  followed  the  Bill  through  all  its  technical 
details,  and  spoke  on  various  amendments  tending  to 
improve  it. 

The  circumstances  for  introducing  the  measure  had, 
he  wrote  subsequently,  been  peculiarly  favourable. 
Agitation  had  gone  down:  the  organisations  which 
chiefly  stimulated  it  were  both  divided  and  discredited, 
and  various  influences  —  the  question  of  financial  rela- 
tions being  one  of  the  most  prominent  —  had  greatly 
improved  the  relations  of  classes : 

'If  the  new  councils  prove  a  real  success,  they  will 
form  habits  that  will  make  future  extensions  of  self- 
government  much  less  dangerous  than  at  present.  If 
they  become  mere  centres  of  corruption,  intolerance, 
and  disloyalty,  they  will  furnish  a  new  and  powerful 
argument  against  Home  Rule.  In  the  meantime, 
the  establishment  of  local  government  has  given  the 
opposition  in  England  a  welcome  reason  for  adjourn- 
ing to  a  distant  future  the  question  of  Home  Rule. 
By  removing  in  the  eyes  of  the  English  public  the  last 
real  grievance  of  Ireland,  it  has  greatly  strengthened 
the  Unionist  position,  and  it  will  be  probably  found 
to  strengthen  not  less  powerfully  the  case  for  a  reduc- 
tion of  the  excessive  representation  of  Ireland.' 

He  felt,  however,  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  uncer- 
tainty about  the  success  of  the  measure,  and  that  much 
depended  on  the  question  whether  the  members  of  the 
old  Grand  Juries  would  be  elected  and  exercise  influ- 
ence on  the  new  bodies.  If  they  were  excluded,  he 
was  afraid  it  might  lead  to  the  disappearance  of  an 
educated  and  loyal  gentry,  for  there  would  be  little 


FINANCIAL   RELATIONS  365 

inducement  for  them  to  remain  in  the  country  after 
the  land  legislation  had  deprived  them  of  all  control 
over  their  properties,  and  the  new  legislation  had 
taken  from  them  their  county  duties  and  interests. 
But  he  deprecated  taking  too  pessimistic  a  view  of 
the  future.  '  Great  political  changes  are  nearly  al- 
ways found  to  produce  both  less  good  and  less  evil 
than  was  anticipated'  and  'a  measure  like  the  Local 
Government  Bill  could  not  possibly  be  rightly  judged 
until  several  years  have  passed  and  several  elections 
have  decided  its  permanent  tendencies.'^ 

Meanwhile  the  financial  relations  continued  to  agitate 
the  minds  of  Unionists  and  Nationalists.  Meetings 
were  held  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  pressure  was 
brought  to  bear  on  the  Government  to  give  a  day  for 
discussion.  On  July  4  Mr.  Redmond  moved  a  resolu- 
tion in  the  House  of  Commons  to  call  attention  to  the 
over-taxation  of  Ireland,  at  the  request,  as  he  stated, 
of  a  conference  of  Irish  members,  presided  over  by 
Colonel  Saunderson,  and  which  consisted  of  repre- 
sentatives from  every  political  party  in  Ireland  and 
was  supported  by  petitions  from  211  Irish  representa- 
tive bodies.  Lccky  seconded  the  resolution,  but  in 
regard  to  the  remedies  he  took,  as  usual,  a  different 
standpoint.  Having  argued  that  there  was  a  sub- 
stantial grievance,  he  said  that  Irish  Unionists  did 
not  wish  for  any  alteration  in  the  existing  system  of 
taxation  or  any  reduction  of  the  whisky  tax;  but  that 
special  financial  assistance  might,  he  thought,  be  given 
in  various  ways  —  for  instance,  by  the  Government 
taking  over  the  lunatic  asylums  in  Ireland  and  pro- 
viding for  them   out   of  the  Consolidated   Fund,  or 


>  'The  Irish  Local  Government  Act,'  Irish  Ecclesiastical  Gazette, 
March  3,  1899. 


366  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

assisting  the  great  need  of  technical  and  agricultural 
education.  No  Irish  money  was  ever  better  spent 
than  the  40,000^.  a  year  expended  on  the  Congested 
Districts  Board,  and  no  Irish  measure  of  recent  years 
had  done  more  real  good  than  that  of  opening  out  the 
poorer  districts  by  light  railways.  He  spoke  of  the 
admirable  work  of  his  friend,  Mr.  Plunkett,  which 
showed  how  much  might  be  done  by  very  moderate 
State  assistance  in  developing  Irish  industries.  'If 
the  Government  put  economical  and  industrial  devel- 
opment in  the  forefront  of  their  Irish  policy,  and  reso- 
lutely refused  to  permit  any  great  contentious  measure 
to  take  precedence  of  it,  they  would  be  taking  the 
course  which  would  be  most  beneficial  to  the  country.' 
The  centenary  of  the  Rebellion  of  1798  was  cele- 
brated that  year  in  many  parts  of  Ireland,  and  the 
demonstrations  that  took  place  in  connection  with  it 
were  in  curious  contrast  with  the  better  understanding 
among  Irish  politicians  of  different  parties. 

'It  is  to  be  hoped,'  wrote  Lecky,  in  August  1898,^ 
'  that  the  spirit  that  is  now  appearing  in  contemporary 
Irish  politics  may  be  gradually  extended  to  the  judg- 
ments of  the  past.  Remote  Irish  history  has  long 
been  treated  by  many  eminent  scholars  with  an  admi- 
rable research  and  impartiality.  .  .  Is  it  too  much  to 
expect  that  a  younger  generation  of  Irish  scholars  will 
make  a  serious  effort  to  take  the  more  contentious 
periods  of  Irish  history  out  of  the  hands  of  mere  dema- 
gogues and  partisans  ?  The  commemorations  of  1798 
are,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  now  nearly  over.  A  large  sec- 
tion of  the  Irish  people  have  done  their  best  to  glorify 
a  rebelhon  which  was  directed  against  Grattan's 
ParUament,  which  led  to  the  abolition  of  that  Parha- 

1  A  short  article  on  '  Irish  Tendencies,'  written  for  the  first 
number  6f  a  new  issue  of  the  Dublin  Daily  Express. 


ENGLAND    AND    GERMANY  367 

ment,  and  which  planted  in  Irehmd  hatred  that  has 
been  the  chief  obstacle  to  all  rational  self-government. 
The  pohticians  have  had  their  say.  Let  us  trust  that 
another  generation  of  Irishmen  may  now  arise  who 
will  treat  history  in  a  different  spirit;  who  will  recog- 
nise that  the  first  duty  of  an  historian  is  to  tell  the 
simple  truth,  and  to  the  best  of  his  abiUty,  and  as  in 
the  sight  of  God,  to  graduate  honestly  the  degrees  of 
praise  and  blame.  Such  men  will  soon  learn  that  the 
falsest  of  all  traitors  are  those  whose  statements  in 
themselves  are  mainly  true,  but  who  make  it  their 
business  to  pick  out  of  the  annals  of  the  past  the  mis- 
deeds of  one  side,  and  to  conceal  the  misdeeds  of 
the  other,  and  in  the  interests  of  a  party  or  a  creed 
habitually  to  suppress  palliations  on  one  side  and 
provocations  on  the  other.' 

Lecky  was  unable  to  do  much  literary  work  during 
the  session.  He  wrote,  however,  in  the  course  of  the 
year  an  introduction  to  Carlyle's  '  French  Revolution ' 
for  an  American  publication,  'A  Series  of  the  World's 
Great  Books,'  and  he  reviewed  in  the  Spectator  'Mr. 
Gregory's  Letter  Box,'  by  Lady  Gregory;  the  'Life  of 
Parnell,'  and  the  'Memorials  of  the  Earl  of-Selborne' 
(Part  2)-.  Editors  frequently  asked  him  to  give  his 
views  on  modern  politics,  and  he  was  persuaded  to 
write  for  a  German  paper,  the  Gegenwart,  on  the  alien- 
ation between  England  and  Germany;  and  for  the 
London  Review  on  the  relations  of  the  United  States 
with  other  Powers.^  Lecky  said  that  he  did  not 
believe  that  there  was  at  that  time  any  antagonism 
of  interests  between  England  and  Germany,  or  any 
jealousy  in  England  of  Germany's  trade  and  Colonial 
expansion. 


>  This  article  appeared  also  in  the  New  York  Independent, 
July  7,  1898. 


368  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

The  policy  of  England  was  perfectly  clear.  It  was 
to  preserve  the  strictest  neutrality  in  European  quar- 
rels, to  look  upon  the  maintenance  of  peace  as  our 
supreme  European  interest,  and  to  avoid  entangling 
alliances.  Unless  Germany  were  to  enter  upon  a 
course  of  gross  aggression,  German  statesmen  knew 
that  they  had  nothing  to  fear  from  England.  After 
the  war  of  1870  there  was  a  large  party  in  England 
who  looked  upon  the  increased  influence  of  Germany 
as  certain  to  lead  to  a  higher  level  of  international 
morals,  to  the  growth  of  a  more  pacific,  progressive, 
and  enlightened  spirit  in  European  politics  —  but  this 
hope  had  been  disappointed,  and  the  malevolent  tone 
of  some  leading  German  papers  could  not  but  have 
in  the  long  run  a  considerable  influence  on  English 
opinion.  He  believed,  however,  that  there  were  many 
Germans  as  well  as  English  who  deplored  the  deepen- 
ing chasm  of  feeling  that  was  dividing  two  great  nations 
which  had  naturally  many  common  bonds  of  sympathy 
and  interest  and  no  real  ground  of  serious  antagonism. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  hailed  the  marked  improve- 
ment which  had  recently  taken  place  in  the  relations 
of  the  two  great  branches  of  the  English-speaking 
race.  '  Peace  and  the  open  door,'  he  wrote,  '  are  the 
two  great  real  interests  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  and 
they  are  most  likely  to  be  attained  by  common  under- 
standings and  common  action.'  Referring  to  the  war 
with  Spain,  he  thought  it  was  '  at  least  likely  to  have 
taught  America  a  lesson  which  she  had  long  neglected. 
It  is  that  war  is  not  a  thingthatcanbeextemporised,and 
that  no  nation,  however  great,  is  really  secure  which 
is  not  prepared  to  defend  herself  both  on  land  and  sea 
in  the  first  weeks  after  hostilities  have  been  declared.' 

During  the  summer,  at  Vosbergen,  he  wrote  great 
part  of  the  introduction  to  the  cabinet  edition  of  his 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE   'DEMOCRACY'  369 

'Democracy  and  Liberty/  in  which  ho  was  anxious 
to  give  an  impartial  appreciation  of  Mr.  Ghulstonc. 
He  now  enjoyed  more  than  ever  the  freedom  and 
quiet  of  his  summer  retreat.  \Miile  his  wife  went 
to  the  coronation  of  the  young  Queen  at  Amsterdam, 
he  wrote  from  Vosbergen,  '  All  goes  on  perfectly  here 
—  delicious  weather  —  delicious  quiet  and  work,  and 
the  village  fete  was  very  pretty  and  orderly.' 

They  returned  to  England  at  the  end  of  October, 

(To  Judge  Gowan.)  The  Athenceum:  November  9, 
1898.  —  '  My  dear  Judge,  —  I  must  thank  you  very 
much  for  your  kind  letter,  for  the  book,  and  for  the 
paper  giving  in  very  concise  form  the  many  labours 
and  honours  of  your  long  and  most  useful  life.  I  am 
much  interested  by  what  you  say  about  America. 
Here  I  think  we  were  most  struck  by  the  skill  and 
resolution  with  which  on  the  American  side  the  war 
was  conducted,  and  by  the  humanity  and  self-restraint 
shown  by  American  public  opinion,  and  we  certainly 
desire  very  strongly  a  good  feeling  between  the  two 
great  branches  of  our  race.  I  think  these  feelings  have 
dominated  over  all  others,  though  the  triumph  of 
Tammany  at  New  York  and  the  ascendancy  of  the 
Bryan  party  in  both  the  Western  and  Southern  States 
are  ominous  for  the  future.  We  have  been  spending 
the  late  summer  and  autumn  in  Holland,  and  I  have 
been  very  busy  writing  a  long  Introduction  to  a  cab- 
inet edition  of  my  '  Democracy '  which  will,  I  hope, 
appear  in  the  beginning  of  January.  It  contains 
among  other  things  a  somewhat  elaborate  review  of 
the  career  of  Gladstone,  which  will,  I  fear,  somewhat 
clash  with  the  language  of  extravagant  and  unqualified 
eulogy  which  has  of  late  been  general.  A  book  is 
just  coming  out  which  throws  a  good  deal  of  light  on 
the  significance  of  the  later  part  of  his  life  —  the  biog- 
raphy of  Parnell,  showing  beyond  all  doubt  how  com- 
pletely he  [Parnell]  was  the  agent  of  the  Fenians  and 
25 


370  WILLIAM  EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

actuated  in  his  policy  by  an  intense  hatred  of  Great 
Britain.  I  hope  tlie  fear  of  war  is  now  over,  but  Eng- 
land is  certainly  in  no  Quaker  mood,  and  I  never 
remember  a  time  when  a  great  war  would  have  been 
more  readily  accepted.  One  advantage  is  that  for 
the  future  it  will  be  understood  on  the  Continent  that 
we  are  not  squeezable  ad  injinitum.  Another  is  that 
the  expectation  of  war  has  greatly  helped  on  the 
machinery  for  our  Army  and  Navy.  Still  I  own  that 
I  should  be  glad  if  the  velvet  glove  was  a  little  more 
used  by  our  newspapers,  some  of  which  have  been  in 
no  small  degree  arrogant  and  provocative.  I  suppose 
we  shall  meet  at  Westminster  at  the  end  of  January. 
It  is  always  interesting,  but  on  the  whole  I  do  not 
look  forward  to  it,  and  during  the  six  months  the  House 
is  sitting  I  find  literary  work  almost  absolutely  impos- 
sible. I  hope  our  Local  Government  Bill  will  not  do 
much  harm;  that  is  all  I  can  say.' 

Though  the  Fashoda  incident^  produced  no  disas- 
trous results,  other  clouds  appeared  on  the  horizon. 
The  distant  rumblings  of  the  gathering  storm  in  South 
Africa  began  to  be  disquieting,  but  no  one  at  that  time 
thought  that  patience,  tact,  and  common-sense  could 
not  avert  so  great  a  calamity  as  a  war  between  the 
two  white  races. 


1  The    reader    may    be    re-  against     the     occupation     of 

minded  that  in  1896  Captain  Fashoda,  and  difficult  negotia- 

Marchand  had   been  sent  by  tions  between  the  two  Govern- 

the  French  Government  on  a  ments  ensued.     The  question 

mission  to  extend  French  influ-  was  settled  early  in  November 

ence  in  the  Valley  of  the  Nile.  1898  by  the  French  Govern- 

He  reached  Fashoda  in  July  ment    agreeing    to    evacuate 

1898,  at  the  very  time  when  Fashoda,    and    a    subsequent 

Lord    Kitchener    had    recon-  delimitation  took  place  which 

quered     the     Soudan.       The  gave    France    commercial    ac- 

British  Government  protested  cess  to  the  Nile. 


ALEXANDRA  COLLEGE  371 

Lecky  spent  the  end  of  the  j^ear  and  the  beginning  of 
the  next  with  his  wife  at  Cannes,  happy  to  escape  for 
a  short  time  from  the  gloom  of  a  London  winter  and 
enjoy  the  sun  by  the  blue  Mediterranean.  They  after- 
wards went  to  Dublin  for  some  social  functions. 
Among  the  Irish  institutions  Lecky  was  interested 
in  was  Alexandra  College,  which,  under  the  able  direc- 
tion of  its  distinguished  lady  principal,  Miss  White, 
holds  a  worthy  place  beside  the  Women's  Colleges 
in  England.  During  his  stay  in  Dublin  an  important 
meeting  was  held  to  further  its  enlargement.  The 
Archbishop  of  Dublin  presided,  and  the  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant, the  Vice- Warden  Dr.  Bernard,  Lord  Justice 
Fitzgibbon,  and  Lecky  were  among  the  speakers. 
Lecky  insisted  on  the  great  importance  of  the  higher 
education  of  women,  as  the  competitions  of  life  had 
become  much  more  acute,  the  standard  of  requirements 
had  been  greatly  raised,  and  the  number  of  women  who 
had  to  fight  the  hard  battle  of  life  had  probably  in- 
creased; and  he  advocated  the  policy  of  the  open  door 
at  the  Universities,  a  policy  which  Trinity  College  as 
a  teaching  University  has  since  been  the  first  to  adopt. 

Speaking  in  the  same  place  the  following  year,  at 
the  opening  ceremony  of  the  new  buildings,  he  dwelt 
on  the  value  of  the  higher  education  of  women  in  cor- 
recting the  desultoriness  of  modern  life.  Men,  as  well 
as  women,  would  benefit  by  it,  for  it  was  a  great  mis- 
fortune when,  as  in  some  countries,  the  intellectual 
life  of  men  was  almost  wholly  severed  from  the  lives 
of  women.  They  would  never  have  a  sound,  moral, 
active,  intellectual  life  among  men  where  the  women 
with  whom  they  habitually  lived  took  no  interest  in 
their  pursuits  and  were  habitually  frivolous,  credu- 
lous, and  intellectually  unsympathetic. 

In   the   beginning   of  January   1899,    Lecky's  new 


372  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

edition  of  the  'Democracy  and  Liberty'  came  out. 
He  had  carefully  revised  it,  as  he  did  all  his  books 
before  he  gave  them  a  stereotyped  form  —  '  correct- 
ing/ as  he  said  in  the  Introduction,  '  such  inaccuracies 
as  I  have  been  able  to  discover  and  .  .  .  introducing 
into  the  text  or  notes  a  few  lines  relating  to  contro- 
versies which  were  pending  at  the  time  of  its  original 
publication,  and  mentioning  salient  facts  which  have 
since  occurred  and  which  had  a  direct  and  important 
bearing  on  the  subjects  I  have  treated.'  He  pointed 
out  how  in  many  respects  his  predictions  had  been 
fulfilled,  but  the  most  important  part  of  the  Introduc- 
tion was  his  estimate  of  the  character  and  career  of 
Mr.  Gladstone.  This  attracted  a  great  deal  of  atten- 
tion and  was  widely  commented  on;  with  admiration 
by  some,  with  disapproval  by  others.  If  Lecky  ex- 
pressed strong  views  about  some  episodes  in  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's political  career,  and  especially  his  Home  Rule 
policy,  no  one  could  have  spoken  with  greater  appre- 
ciation of  his  eloquence,  of  his  debating  powers,  of  his 
financial  skill,  of  the  readiness  and  versatility  of  his 
mind,  of  his  lifelong  hatred  of  acts  of  cruelty  and 
wrong,  of  his  charm  in  private  life.  ' .  .  .  the  elabo- 
rate character  of  Gladstone,'  wrote  Sir  Mountstuart 
Grant-Duff  in  his  '  Diary,'  '  seems  to  me  very  much  the 
best  estimate  of  his  merits  and  defects  which  has 
appeared.' 

Very  soon  after  the  opening  of  Parliament  a  debate 
took  place  on  the  distress  in  the  West  of  Ireland.  The 
remedy  suggested  from  the  Nationalist  side  was  the 
enlargement  of  the  holdings,  by  parcelling  out  grazing- 
lands  among  them  and  conferring  on  the  Congested 
Districts  Board  compulsory  powers  to  acquire  these. 
Lecky  was  strongly  opposed  to  this  plan.  He  had 
studied  for  a  long  time  past  the  economic  conditions 


DISTRESS    IN   THE    WEST    OF    IRELAND  373 

of  the  country,  and  he  expressed  the  conviction  that 
such  a  policy  would  be  fatal  to  Ireland's  prosperity. 
The  conditions  of  nature  —  the  Atlantic  rain,  the 
poverty  of  the  soil  —  the  bad  farming,  the  tendency 
largely  to  subdivide  holdings  were,  in  Lccky's  eyes, 
so  many  reasons  for  not  stereotyping  on  the  soil  the 
present  owners  of  land  in  the  poorer  districts  of  Con- 
naught.  Something,  but  not  much,  might  be  done 
towards  enlarging  their  holdings;  but  he  thought  any 
attempt  to  break  up  the  richer  grazing-land  would 
be  one  of  the  worst  things  that  could  happen.  The 
first  and  most  vital  industry  is  the  cattle  trade.  Owing 
to  its  natural  conditions  Ireland  must  be  a  pastoral 
country.  It  can  only  be  by  keeping  up  that  pasture 
in  a  flourishing  condition  that  any  real  prosperity  can 
come.  An  attack  upon  the  graziers  and  the  cattle 
trade,  coupled  with  a  revival  of  the  land  agitation 
which  inevitably  drives  immense  masses  of  capital 
out  of  the  country,  must  be  most  disastrous.  There 
was  no  need  to  confer  compulsory  powers  of  purchase 
on  the  Congested  Districts  Board,  as  they  did  not 
require  them.  The  Government  had  just  increased 
the  resources  of  the  Board  by  a  considerable  grant, 
and  one  of  the  measures  of  the  session  was  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  long-promised  Department  of  Agri- 
culture and  Technical  Education  which  was  intended 
to  raise  the  level  of  agriculture  and  to  encourage  and 
assist  industries.  Mr.  Horace  Plunkett  took  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  debate,  and  as  the  Nationalists 
attempted  to  disparage  his  work,  Lecky  took  the 
opportunity  of  saying  'that  by  turning  the  minds  of 
the  people  of  a  great  part  of  Ireland  in  a  practical 
direction,  and  by  showing  how  by  patient  work  they 
can  improve  the  economical  conditions  of  Ireland  and 
so  raise  it  to  a  higher  level  of  civilisation,  Mr.  Plunkett 


374  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

had  done  more  than  any  other  non-official  member 
for  the  benefit  of  his  country.' 

The  question  of  the  Old  Age  Pensions  had  now 
acquired  great  prominence.  It  had  been  brought 
forward  at  the  elections,  and  a  pension  scheme  on  a 
moderate  scale  had  been  strongly  advocated  by  Mr. 
Chamberlain.  The  Government  proposal  to  appoint 
a  fresh  Committee  gave  rise  to  a  debate  in  which  Lecky, 
in  a  forcible  speech,  expressed  his  views.  He  thought 
that  after  two  singularly  able  Commissions  had  been 
for  months  investigating  the  matter  and  had  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  they  could  not  discover  any  scheme 
of  Old  Age  Pensions  which  would  not  bring  the  most 
grave  and  serious  disadvantages,  the  Government 
should  have  dropped  the  question.  He  showed  all 
the  dangers  of  such  a  scheme  involving  a  huge  expendi- 
ture which  under  certain  circumstances  the  country 
might  find  it  difficult  to  meet,  and  'leading  to  the 
gravest  indirect  and  unsuspected  consequences.'  The 
result  of  his  speech  was  that  he  was  asked  to  be  on  the 
Committee,  to  which  he  somewhat  reluctantly  con- 
sented. His  further  investigation  of  the  matter  and 
the  evidence  brought  before  the  Committee  confirmed 
him  in  his  views,  and  he  finally  wrote  a  report  giving 
his  reasons  for  dissenting  from  the  majority  of  the 
Committee  who  recommended  a  large  pension  scheme. 
It  was  not  from  any  want  of  sympathy  with  those 
who  were  destitute  in  old  age  that  Lecky  opposed  it; 
on  the  contrary,  he  was  most  compassionate  towards 
every  form  of  human  suffering,  but  apart  from  the 
innumerable  existing  agencies,  he  thought  a  reform 
of  the  Poor  Law  would  be  the  best  remedy,  without 
entailing  the  economic  and  political  evils  of  a  State 
pension  scheme. 

At  the  end  of  the  session  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth: 


IRISH   LITERARY  THEATRE  375 

'We  had  a  very  quiet,  not  to  say  dull,  session,  and 
the  only  two  Irish  Bills  —  that  increasing  the  revenue 
of  the  Congested  Districts  Board,  and  that  setting  up 
a  good  system  of  technical  and  agricultural  education, 
were  both  useful  and  not  much  contested.  I  had, 
however,  a  good  deal  of  special  work  on  the  Old  Age 
Pension  Committee.  To  my  mind  the  Old  Age  Pen- 
sion project  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous  of  all  forms 
of  State  sociahsm,  and  many  members  of  our  party 
and  some  of  our  Front  Bench  are  committed  to  it. 
...  I  am  afraid  we  shall  have  a  good  deal  of  trouble 
on  this  matter  and  that  the  Unionist  party  may  com- 
mit itself  to  a  pohcy  which  is  sure  to  lead  to  great 
corruption  and  increase  of  taxation.  However,  I  am 
pretty  sure  that  Hicks  Beach  is  strongly  against  this 
poUcy.' 

In  the  autumn  of  that  year  Lecky  wrote,  at  the 
request  of  the  editor  of  the  Forum,  an  article  on  Old 
Age  Pensions,  which  appeared  in  the  February  num- 
ber, 1900,  of  that  Review.^ 

He  had  now  become  interested  in  a  fresh  Irish  enter- 
prise, a  National  Theatre.  It  had  been  started  in 
1898  by  a  small  group  of  Irish  literary  people,  one  of 
whom  was  Lady  Gregory  —  a  friend  of  his  —  who 
enlisted  his  sympathy  in  the  movement.  He  assisted 
in  guaranteeing  the  expenses  and  in  getting  a  clause 
inserted  in  the  Local  Government  Bill  which  made 
it  practicable  for  amateurs  to  act  in  Dublin.  By 
the  regulations,  hitherto  in  force,  it  was  illegal  to  give 
performances  for  money  in  any  building  except  the 
two  licensed  Dublin  theatres,  and  these  could  only  be 
secured  on  prohibitive  terms.  Lecky  had  been  much 
struck  with  an  Irish  play,  the  'Countess  Kathleen,' 
written  by  the  Irish  poet,  Mr.  Yeats,  and  in  a  letter 


I  Published  in  his  Historical  and  Political  Essays. 


376  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

to  the  editor  of  the  Dublin  Daily  Express,  apologising 
for  not  being  able  to  attend  the  dinner  given  to  the 
promoters  of  the  theatre,  he  wrote: 

Matj  10,  1899.  — '  May  I  take  this  opportunity  to 
say  with  what  deep  pleasure  I  have  learned  the  success 
of  Mr.  Yeats'  very  remarkable  play,  and  with  what 
sincere  sympathy  I  have  been  following  the  work  of 
the  school  of  brilliant  young  Irish  writers  to  which  he 
belongs?  It  is  not  often  that  we  have  such  a  genuine 
or  such  a  distinctive  literary  movement  in  Ireland, 
and  the  interest  it  is  exciting  seems  to  me  one  of  the 
best  signs  in  contemporary  Irish  life.  These  writers 
have  already  done  good  work,  and  I  trust  they  may 
have  a  long  and  noble  future  before  them.' 

Unfortunately  in  Ireland  it  is  rare  for  any  movement 
to  keep  clear  of  politics.  When  Queen  Victoria  paid 
her  last  visit  to  Ireland  some  members  of  the  Irish 
Literary  Theatre  protested  against  an  address  of  wel- 
come, and  Lccky  in  consequence  withdrew  his  name 
from  the  list  of  patrons. 

He  had  now  got  into  the  habit  of  going  at  the  end 
of  the  session  for  a  few  weeks  to  Scotland  before  settling 
down  in  Holland  for  the  remainder  of  the  summer.  He 
went  this  time  to  Oban,  spending  nearly  every  day 
either  on  the  water  or  in  long  and  beautiful  mountain 
drives  in  the  Glencoe  country. 

'  Among  other  excursions,'  he  wrote  to  his  step- 
mother, '  I  went  on  a  lovely  day  —  the  sea  studded 
with  divers  and  in  some  places  with  sea  anemones  — 
to  Staff  a  and  to  lona,  which  I  had  never  before  seen 
and  which  is  full,  to  me,  of  very  interesting  historical 
recollections  chiefly  connected  with  St.  Columba. 
The  Dean  of  Salisbury  and  his  wife  —  who  are  old 
friends    of    mine  —  are   here,    and   between    pleasant 


'THE    MAP    OF    life'  377 

people,  lovely  drives,  and  quite  perfect  weather,  time 
has  gone  very  quickly  and  I  feel  quite  a  different  being 
from  what  I  was  in  London.' 

In  the  summer,  at  Vosbergcn,  ho  finished  the  'Map 
of  Life.' 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  Vosbergen:  September  19,  1899.  — 
.  .  .  '  My  own  book  is  on  the  Conduct  of  Life,  but  that 
title  being  taken  by  Emerson  I  have  had  to  choose 
another.  You  will  no  doubt  be  struck  with  the  nov- 
elty of  the  subject.  However,  like  so  many  others  in 
every  generation,  I  have  succeeded  in  persuading  my- 
self that  I  have  something  to  say  about  it  —  whether 
others  will  think  tlie  same  I  do  not  know.  It  is  largely 
based  on  little  notes  I  have  been  making  during  many 
years,  and  will  be  about  the  length  of  half  of  one  of 
the  volumes  of  the  "Democracy."  I  am  to-day 
sending  off  the  last  corrected  proof-sheet  (the  table  of 
contents)  and  hope  it  may  come  out  early  in  October, 
but  America  (which  insists  that  books  in  order  to 
have  copyright  must  be  printed  there  and  appear  on 
the  same  day  in  both  countries)  may  perhaps  cause 
some  delay. 

'  I  much  doubt  whether  I  shall  write  anything  more 
of  importance.  I  suppose  we  are  in  for  a  horrid  war 
with  the  Transvaal;  I  doubt  whether  it  could  have 
been  avoided  — ■  and  the  grievances  (if  somewhat  exag- 
gerated) are  real,  but  it  can  hardly  fail  to  have  very 
mischievous  effects  in  the  relation  of  races  through 
all  South  Africa,  and  I  at  least  feel  it  impossible  to 
have  any  enthusiasm  for  it.  I  think  ...  at  earlier 
stages  a  rather  more  conciliatory  tone  over  here  might 
have  done  something,  but  when  people  mix  their 
politics  with  their  reUgion  and  believe  (as  I  believe 
Kruger  sincerely  does)  that  they  are  under  Divine 
inspiration,  they  are  very  difficult  to  deal  with.  We 
must  stop  here  till  the  end  of  the  month  and  shall 
probably   be   in   London   early   in   October,    perhaps 


378  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

taking  a  short  flight  to  the  South  before  Parhament 
meets  in  February,' 

The  'Map  of  Life'  came  out  in  October,  and  it 
became  at  once  very  popular,  a  two-thousand  edition 
being  sold  out  in  a  week.  A  book  that  treats  of  the 
many  phases  of  life  and  varieties  of  character,  that 
contains  the  observations  and  experiences  of  one  who 
had  lived  in  close  contact  with  the  world  and  who  had 
always  kept  up  a  high  standard  for  himself,  could  not 
fail  to  be  attractive  to  thoughtful  minds.  The  thread 
that  runs  all  through  the  book  is  that  man  comes 
into  the  world  with  a  free  will,  and  that  though  it 
is  more  limited  than  he  usually  imagines,  he  can,  by 
a  judicious  and  continuous  exercise  of  it,  to  a  certain 
extent  form  his  character  and  direct  his  life.  'The 
natural  power  of  the  will  in  different  men  differs  greatly, 
but  there  is  no  part  of  our  nature  which  is  more 
strengthened  by  exercise  or  more  weakened  by  dis- 
use' (p.  234). 

The  book  brought  him  many  letters  from  those  who 
had  derived  instruction,  pleasure,  or  comfort  from  it. 
To  Mr.  Booth,  who  had  pronounced  himself  to  be  more 
of  a  determinist,  he  wrote: 

'  I  do  not  think  I  am  insensible  to  the  physiological 
side  of  morals,  and  if  you  will  look  at  the  last  page  or 
two  of  the  introductory  chapter  of  my  "  History  of 
Morals,"  you  will  find  that  I  long  ago  predicted  as 
one  of  the  achievements  of  the  future  a  medical  treat- 
ment of  morals.  At  the  same  time,  I  have  an  inex- 
pugnable belief  that  the  physiological  generation  or 
strengthening  of  tendencies  does  not  explain  all,  and 
that  there  is  an  independent  will  which,  with  greater 
or  less  strength,  and  in  the  face  of  greater  or  less 
strength  of  opposition,  can  resist  tendencies  and  do 
something  to  mould  life.' 


SOUTH   AFRICAN   WAR  379 

Among  the  letters  he  received,  there  was  one  from 
an  American  correspondent  who  wrote: 

'  It  is  to  me  one  of  the  most  suggestive  and  helpful 
books  which  it  has  ever  been  my  good  fortune  to  read. 
I  called  the  attention  of  our  distinguished  young  Gov- 
ernor, Theodore  Roosevelt,  to  the  book  some  time  ago, 
and  you  may  therefore  imagine  with  what  pleasure  I 
notice  that  in  his  Annual  Message  he  quoted  from  it 
with  approval  and  aptness.  ...  I  daresay  that 
Governor  Roosevelt  can  claim  to  be  the  first  public 
official  who  has  quoted  from  your  book.' 

The  Provost  of  Trinity  College,  Dr.  Salmon,  wrote 
in  his  own  characteristic  way  that  if  he  had  not  given 
up  preaching  in  chapel  he  would  have  found  in  it 
'subjects  for  sermons  for  a  long  time  to  come,  but  in 
this  literary  age,  when  we  address  the  eye  so  much 
more  than  the  ear,  a  lay  preacher  can  command  the 
attention  of  a  larger  audience  than  any  clergyman  can 
hope  to  influence.' 

The  'Map  of  Life'  was  translated  into  Hungarian, 
Russian,  parts  of  it  into  German,  and  a  Gujarati  trans- 
lation was  proposed. 

The  first  Peace  Conference  had  met  that  summer  at 
The  Hague  with  all  the  glamour  of  a  new  departure  in 
the  history  of  human  progress,  but  it  did  not  prevent 
war  breaking  out  immediately  after.  The  relations 
between  England  and  the  Transvaal  had  become  more 
and  more  strained.  The  Bloemfontein  Conference  had 
failed,  and  subsequent  negotiations  had  been  unsuc- 
cessful. England  began  to  show  that  she  was  ready 
to  enforce  her  demands  —  the  Boers  began  to  mass 
themselves  on  their  borders.  Early  in  October  the 
Reserve  was  called  out,  and  this  was  at  once  followed 
by  the  unfortunate  Boer  ultimatum.  War  was  now 
inevitable.     In  the  middle  of  October,  Parliament  was 


380  WILLIAM  EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

summoned  to  provide  for  the  necessary  expenditure 
which  had  been  or  might  be  caused  by  events  in  South 
Africa.  If  Lecky  had  had  any  doubts  beforehand  as 
to  a  war  being  justifiable,  once  it  was  declared  he  gave 
his  country  a  whole-hearted  support,  and  he  thought 
it  was  the  duty  of  every  British  subject  to  stand  loyally 
by  her.  England  had  at  that  time  a  good  deal  alien- 
ated the  sympathy  of  other  nations.  There  were  vari- 
ous reasons  for  this,  one  being  undoubtedly  the  natural 
inclination  to  side  with  the  smaller  and  weaker  nation 
in  her  conflict  with  the  big  and  powerful  one  —  for 
though  the  Boers  had  successes  at  first,  it  was  certain 
that  they  would  ultimately  be  overwhelmed  by  num- 
bers and  superior  strategy.  In  the  course  of  the  winter 
Lecky  was  asked  by  an  American  syndicate  to  write 
his  views  on  the  merits  of  the  war.  In  America  opinion 
was  much  divided.  Among  the  intelligent  and  edu- 
cated in  general  there  was  a  firm  conviction  —  as  an 
American  friend  wrote  to  him  —  that  England  was 
fighting  the  battle  of  civilisation.  The  Irish  element 
was  hostile  to  England  and  the  German  largely  so. 
The  masses  did  not  know  or  care  much,  but  were 
inclined  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  Republican  Boers 
fighting  for  independence.  A  judicial  exposition  of  the 
situation  was  therefore  much  wanted,  and  Lecky  wrote 
a  few  pages  under  the  heading  of  'Moral  Aspects  of 
the  South  African  War.'  The  article  appeared  in  the 
Daily  News  as  well  as  in  America. 

No  one  wishes  to  stir  up  the  embers  of  that  unhappy 
strife  and  rehearse  the  controversy  —  except  when 
required  for  historical  purposes  —  and  Lecky's  views 
may  be  summarised  in  a  few  words.  It  was  impos- 
sible, he  thought,  that  a  British  Government  could 
permanently  ignore  the  state  of  subjection  and  inferi- 
ority to  which  a  great  body  of  British  subjects  at 


VIEWS   ON  THE    WAR  381 

Johannesburg  had  been  reduced.  He  thought  the 
best  solution  would  have  been  if  the  Transvaal  Gov- 
ernment had  agreed  to  Mr,  Chamberlain's  proposal 
to  convert  Johannesburg  into  a  distinct  municipality, 
or  —  when  that  was  rejected  —  if  they  had  accepted 
the  franchise  proposals  of  the  Government  which  would 
have  limited  the  Uitlander  representation  to  a  fourth 
or  even  a  fifth  part  of  the  Volksraad,  with  a  full  and 
formal  guarantee  of  the  independence  of  the  Trans- 
vaal. When  all  real  reform  was  refused,  war  became 
unavoidable. 

The  following  passage,  written  amidst  the  heated 
passions  of  the  hour,  may  be  read  with  interest  by  the 
light  of  present  events: 

'The  determination  of  the  country  to  carry  it  [the 
war]  to  a  decisive  victory  is  unquestionable,  and  the 
Government  have  declared  that  their  two  ends  are 
the  equality  of  the  white  races  in  South  Africa  and  a 
substantial  security  that  no  renewal  of  a  war  like  the 
present  can  occur.  Beyond  this  it  seems  to  me  at  pres- 
ent most  unwise  to  go,  and  the  final  pacification  of 
the  Transvaal  is  a  task  which  must  tax  tlie  highest 
resources  of  statesmanship.  On  the  whole,  the  most 
intelligent  English  politicians  believe  that  it  may  be 
accomplished.  They  have  great  faith  in  political 
freedom  and  good  administration.  They  believe  that 
when  the  Dutch  population  in  the  Transvaal  find  that 
they  are  left  perfectly  unmolested  on  their  farms, 
that  they  have  the  fullest  political  equality  with  the 
English,  and  that  they  are  governed  far  better,  more 
wisely,  and  more  honestly  than  in  the  past,  the  ill 
feeling  between  the  two  races  will  speedily  settle  down. 
They  think  that  the  present  war  will  have  taught 
them  to  respect  each  other,  and  that  a  progressive 
and  enlightened  government  will  ultimately  prove 
stronger  than  one  which  was  in  extreme  opposition  to 


382  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

all  the  best  tendencies  of  the  time.  They  hope  to 
establish  under  the  British  flag  a  large  system  of  local 
autonomy  and  create  some  sort  of  federation  Uke  that 
of  Canada  or  Austraha.' 

The  Women's  Liberal  Unionist  Association  under- 
took that  year  to  spread  literature  in  foreign  countries 
in  order  to  explain  the  attitude  of  England,  which  was 
much  misunderstood.  They  wanted  a  temperate 
statement  of  the  English  side  of  the  struggle,  and  they 
thought  Lecky's  article  admirable  for  the  purpose. 
They  asked  him  if  he  would  allow  them  to  republish 
it  in  pamphlet  form,  and  to  this  he  consented.  Ten 
thousand  copies  were  printed,  and  it  was  translated 
into  French  and  German.^ 

To  Mr.  Booth,  Lecky  wrote  on  March  15,  1900: 
'It  will  require  a  great  deal  of  careful  statesmanship 
to  patch  up  a  settlement,  and  I  hope  the  first  stage, 
at  least,  will  be  left  to  Lord  Roberts,  who  seems  to 
me  to  combine  strength  with  tact  more  than  anyone 
I  know,  except  Lord  Dufferin.' 

Lecky  had  taken  that  winter  a  holiday  in  the  South, 
and  spent  a  few  weeks  in  Florence,  which  he  was 
glad  to  see  again  after  a  long  interval.  He  found  what 
he  described  as  a  singularly  charming  half  English, 
half  Italian  society,  and  he  saw  a  great  deal  of  Profes- 
sor Villari,  whose  works  he  admired  and  who  impressed 
him  much  with  his  ability.  Lecky's  early  love  for 
Italy  had  never  flagged,  and  he  liked  reviving  the  old 
art  memories  and  comparing  them  with  new  impres- 
sions. He  was  home  for  the  meeting  of  Parliament 
on  January  30. 


>  The  article  appeared  in  berg,  on  February  27,  had 
the  Daily  News  on  March  10,  marked  the  turning-point  in 
1900.     The  events  at  Paarde-      the  war. 


FINANCIAL   RELATIONS  383 

The  debates  were,  of  course,  largely  taken  up  with 
the  South  African  war,  but  on  March  22  the  financial 
relations  between  England  and  Ireland  were  again 
brought  before  Parliament.  In  speaking  on  the  sub- 
ject, Lecky  said  that  Irish  Unionists  wished  to  keep 
the  question  clear  of  the  obligation  of  Ireland  to  assist 
England  in  an  Imperial  contest,  because  the  Union 
implied  that  in  all  such  contests  Ireland  must  go 
heartily  with  England,  not  only  as  she  was  then  'splen- 
didly doing,  by  the  services  of  her  soldiers,  but  also 
by  her  financial  support.'  He  pointed  out  that  'from 
an  Imperial  point  of  view  the  strongest  argument 
against  Home  Rule  was  that  it  would  place  the  re- 
sources of  Ireland  in  the  hands  of  men  who  would 
be  hostile  to  the  interests  of  the  Empire,'  and  no  reason- 
able man  can  deny,  he  added,  that  if  a  separate  Parlia- 
ment had  existed  in  Ireland  during  the  last  few  months, 
and  if  it  had  consisted  mainly  of  the  Nationalist  mem- 
bers in  the  House  of  Commons,  'its  whole  influence 
would  have  been  employed  in  thwarting  and  injuring 
England  in  the  present  war.' 

While  he  maintained,  as  he  had  always  done,  that 
Ireland  was  entitled  to  be  treated  in  matters  .of  finance 
as  a  distinct  unit,  he  thought  that  the  question  of  the 
financial  relations  had  undergone  a  change  since  the  sub- 
ject was  last  discussed.  The  Treasury  returns  showed 
that  Irish  taxation  compared  more  favourably  with  the 
taxation  of  the  Empire  than  it  had  done;  more  of  it 
had  been  devoted  to  Irish  purposes  and  less  to  Imperial 
purposes.  The  graduated  income-tax  was  an  advan- 
tage to  the  poorer  country.  Loans  had  been  given 
to  Ireland  in  greater  proportion  than  to  Great  Britain; 
an  additional  yearly  sum  had  been  given  to  the  Con- 
gested Districts  Board,  and  a  substantial  grant,  though 
he  wished  it  had  been  a  larger  one,  had  been  made  for 


384  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

the  endowment  of  the  new  Agricultural  and  Technical 
Education  Department.  He  concluded  by  saying  that 
he  believed  the  Irish  grievance  was  a  dwindling  one 
and  not  now  very  serious  —  and  that  was  very  much 
the  impression  left  by  the  debate. 

The  next  day  he  had  to  take  up  the  defence  of 
Trinity  College  in  a  debate  on  the  Irish  Catholic  Uni- 
versity question.  Trinity  College  had  been  accused 
of  being  narrow  and  exclusive  and  out  of  touch  with 
Irish  life.  Lecky  demonstrated  that  her  policy  had 
been  the  very  reverse.  Concession  after  concession  had 
been  made,  and  it  was  well  known  more  would  be  made 
if  Roman  Catholics  would  only  accept  them.  As  for 
being  out  of  touch  with  Irish  life  and  literature,  the 
answer  was  that  they  had  a  Professor  of  Irish,  another 
professor  who  was  the  first  living  authority  about  the 
Brehon  law,  and  that  by  far  the  larger  proportion  of 
those  distinguished  in  Celtic  literature  had  been  through 
the  University  of  Dublin.  There  was  Bishop  Reeves, 
one  of  the  greatest  Celtic  scholars  who  had  ever  lived; 
Professor  Stokes,  who  had  written  one  of  the  best 
books  on  Celtic  ecclesiastical  history;  there  was  Dr. 
Todd,  Bishop  Graves,  and  many  others. 

Lecky  wrote  that  winter  an  article  on  Dean  Milman^ 
for  the  Edinburgh  Review,  and  he  soon  after  began 
revising  and  rewriting  his  '  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion.' 
It  has  been  shown  that  he  had  always  been  in  the  habit 
of  revising  his  books  with  the  greatest  care.  In  the 
case  of  his  '  Leaders '  so  many  fresh  sources  of  knowledge 
had  become  accessible  since  the  book  had  been  out  of 
print,  that  it  was  a  question  of  largely  rewriting  it, 
and  to  this  he  now  devoted  most  of  his  spare  time. 

In  the  month  of  April  1900  Queen  Victoria  paid  her 


*  It  has  been  included  in  the  Historical  and  Political  Essays. 


PARLIAMENTARY    DUTIES  385 

memorable  visit  to  Ireland.  Lecky  and  his  wife  were 
there  during  the  Easter  holidays,  chiefly  staying  under 
the  hospitable  roof  of  the  Chief  Secretary  Mr.  Gerald 
Balfour,  and  Lady  Betty  Balfour.  During  the  day 
the  Queen  drove  about  performing  various  gracious 
acts;  in  the  evening  she  had  small  parties  at  the  Vice- 
Regal  Lodge,  to  which  all  those  who  were  representa- 
tive of  Irish  life  and  interests  were  invited. 

The  Queen's  stay  was  an  entire  success.  She  had 
had  a  warm  reception,  and  when  she  left,  in  radiant 
sunshine,  on  April  26,  thousands  of  her  loyal  Irish 
subjects  went  to  see  the  last  of  her.  Far  from  the 
crowd  on  Ivilliney  Hill,  Lecky  and  his  wife  saw  the 
Royal  yacht,  escorted  by  the  Channel  Fleet,  steam 
away  in  the  distance,  till  it  finally  disappeared  out 
of  sight,  and  the  Queen's  visit  was  nothing  more  than 
an  interesting  memory,  destined  perhaps  to  exercise 
some  permanent  influence. 

Lecky  returned  that  day  to  England  for  his  Parlia- 
mentary duties.  During  the  remainder  of  the  session 
he  took  part  in  the  debates  on  various  Irish  questions, 
but  he  took  no  less  interest  in  other  legislation,  and  he 
urged  the  Government  —  in  a  letter  to  the  Tunes  — 
to  'avoid  one  lamentable  waste  of  legislative  power' 
by  not  abandoning  useful  measures  such  as  the  Money- 
lending  Bill  and  the  Youthful  Offenders  Bill,  simply 
because  they  contained  contentious  clauses  which  could 
easily  be  dropped  and  brought  in  as  separate  Bills 
in  the  ensuing  session.  The  war,  of  course,  was  largely 
discussed.  'Chamberlain's  speech  last  night,'  he  wrote 
on  May  15,  'was  lucid,  lofty,  statesmanhke,  and  ad- 
mirably conciliatory.'  By  the  end  of  July  he  always 
felt  very  fagged,  and  this  time  he  took  a  short  trip  to 
Kerry.  London  had  been  very  hot  and  he  enjoyed 
the  relative  freshness  of  lakes  and  mountains.  He 
26 


386  WILLIAM   EDWARD  HARTPOLE   LECKY 

stayed  at  Killarney,  made  the  excursion  of  the  lakes 
in  lovely  weather,  'the  colours  enchantingly  beau- 
tiful,' he  wrote,  'and  it  is  pleasant  again  feeling  in  a 
normal  temperature  and  regaining  the  keenness  of  life.' 
He  went  on  to  Lake  Carragh  and  Parknasilla,  and  was 
most  enthusiastic  about  both  places.  'I  cannot  tell 
you,'  he  wrote  from  Parknasilla,  'what  a  lovely  place 
this  is  when  the  sun  is  out  to  give  life  to  the  landscape, 
and  when  the  beautiful  shadows  are  coursing  over  the 
mountains.'  He  always  found  that  being  in  good  air 
had  a  rejuvenating  effect,  though  on  this  occasion  he 
feared  it  was  hardly  shown  by  his  personal  appearance, 
judging  by  a  speech  which  a  Glengariffe  boatman  made 
to  him.  '  Well,  sir,  you  have  been  a  grand  man  in  your 
day —  I  suppose  that  you  may  be  now  about  eighty?' 
He  was  then  sixty-two,  and  the  remark  was  amusing 
from  the  fact  that  his  old  friends  always  maintained 
that  he  never  seemed  to  change.  His  fair  hair  was 
only  slightly  tinged  with  grey,  and  he  kept  his  youth- 
ful looks  till  his  last  illness. 

The  political  atmosphere  was  very  unsettled  in  the 
summer  of  1900 :  there  were  rumours  of  an  approaching 
dissolution  and  there  was  unfortunately  disunion  in 
the  Irish  Unionist  camp.  The  so-called  killing-Home- 
Rule-with-kindness  policy  which  had  been  pursued  by 
the  Government  had  caused  much  dissatisfaction. 
Moreover,  the  appointment  of  a  former  Nationalist  as 
secretary  to  the  new  Agricultural  and  Technical  De- 
partment had  raised  a  formidable  opposition  against 
its  Vice-President,  Mr.  Horace  Plunkett,  although  the 
appointment  was  wholly  unpolitical.  Mr.  Gill  had  been 
selected  as  the  person  best  qualified  for  the  post;  he 
was  not  then  taking  any  part  in  politics,  and  he  stated 
that  he  did  not  defend  the  morality  of  the  Plan  of 
Campaign.    The  Unionist  Alliance  had  drawn  up  a 


GENERAL   ELECTION  387 

strong  indictment  against  the  Government,  and  when 
the  dissokition  came  Mr.  Horace  Plunkett's  election 
was  opposed  by  another  Unionist,  as  well  as  by  a 
Nationalist  candidate.  Lecky  greatly  deplored  the 
uncompromising  attitude  adopted  by  his  Unionist  fel- 
low-countrymen, and  thought  it  fatal  to  the  best 
interests  of  Ireland.  He  expressed  this  in  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Plunkett,  and  it  was  read  at  the  last  meeting  before 
the  election : 

'In  other  parts  of  the  Empire,'  he  concluded,  'the 
long  years  of  disinterested  labour  you  have  spent  in 
developing  the  resources  of  your  country  and  creating 
a  better  feehng  among  its  people  would  have  given  you 
the  support  of  all  parties.  In  Ireland  this  is  not  the 
case,  but  I  trust  there  is  at  least  sufficient  gratitude 
or  public  spirit  in  your  constituency  to  secure  your 
majority  and  to  prevent  what,  in  my  judgment,  would 
be  nothing  short  of  a  national  disgrace.' 

Strong  influence,  through  the  press  and  otherwise, 
was  brought  to  bear  against  Mr.  Horace  Plunkett's 
election.  The  Unionist  votes  were  split.  Fifteen 
hundred  went  to  his  opponent,  and  South  Dublin  was 
lost  to  the  Unionists. 

Another  interesting  election  which  was  hotly  con- 
tested was  the  Galway  one,  but  this  ended  in  a  Union- 
ist triumph.  Mr.  Martin  Morris^  (eldest  son  of  Lord 
Morris)  was  the  first  Unionist  returned  for  the  place 
within  the  last  twenty  years.  The  priests  had  gone 
against  him  by  order  of  the  bishop,  but  his  popularity 
had  won  the  fishermen  of  the  Claddagh,  who  voted 
solid  for  him.  The  town  was  still  seething  with  the 
excitement  of  the  election,  when  Mr.  Lecky  and  his 
wife  arrived  there  on  a  visit  to  Lord  and  Lady  Morris, 


»  Now  Lord  Killanin. 


388  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

and  enthusiastic  fisherwomen  surrounded  the  coach 
with  which  Lord  Morris  had  come  to  fetch  his  guests. 
The  drive  to  Spiddal,  the  family  place,  took  them  for 
thirteen  miles  over  very  wild,  stony  country  with 
scarcely  a  vestige  of  human  life  or  cultivation,  but 
with  a  fine  view  of  Galway  Bay  all  along  the  road. 
The  house  overlooks  the  sea  and  the  mountains  of 
Clare  beyond,  a  river  dashes  through  the  grounds, 
and  amidst  all  the  refinements  of  culture  and  civilisa- 
tion the  place  seemed  to  have  kept  some  of  the  wild 
character  of  the  surrounding  scenery,  softened  by  the 
vegetation  of  a  mild  climate,  the  arbutus  and  myrtle. 
Lord  Morris  died  the  following  year.  He  was,  said 
Lecky,  '  one  of  the  shrewdest,  one  of  the  kindest,  one 
of  the  most  genial,  as  well  as  the  wittiest  of  our  Irish 
judges;  a  man  who  was  the  delight  of  every  circle 
in  which  he  moved,  and  who  will  long  live  in  the 
memory  of  a  host  of  friends.'^ 

Lecky  and  his  colleague  had  been  re-elected  without 
opposition,  in  accordance  with  the  traditions  of  Dublin 
University.  As  College  was  not  in  term,  there  were  no 
undergraduates  and  all  went  off  very  quietly.  The 
election  took  place  in  the  examination  hall  on  October 
2,  and  the  College  expressed  its  entire  confidence  in 
both  its  members.  Lecky  was  proposed  by  Dr.  Gray 
in  most  appreciative  words,  expressing  the  great  sat- 
isfaction of  his  constituents  at  the  part  he  had  taken 
in  Parliament  and  at  the  weight  and  influence  he  had 
acquired.  'No  one  could  have  been  more  watchful  of 
the  interests  of  his  constituents.  He  was  always  on 
the  spot,  always  ready  to  help,  always  accessible  to 
every  Trinity  College  man,  graduate  or  undergraduate, 
and  the  younger  the  graduate  the  greater  pleasure  he 


'  At  the  dinner  given  to  Lord  Roberts,  July  8,  1902. 


DUBLIN    UNIVERSITY   ELECTION  389 

had  in  giving  assistance.'  Both  his  proposer  and  his 
seconder,  Dr.  Charles  Ball,  pronounced  him  to  be  'an 
ideal  member.'  Lecky  in  returning  thanks  to  the 
electors  gave  a  short  survey  of  his  attitude  on  various 
questions.  He  deprecated  the  opposition  of  Irish 
Unionists  to  the  Government. 

'  When  they  knew,'  he  said,  '  that  the  only  alternative 
was  a  Government  in  which  the  Home  Rule  party  must 
have  a  great  influence,  and  that  even  greatly  to  weaken 
the  Government  might  have  the  effect  of  throwing 
the  balance  of  power  into  Home  Rule  hands,  it  seemed 
to  him  that  it  would  be  wise  to  take  a  somewhat  more 
matrimonial  view  of  pohtics,  to  accept  their  partner 
for  better  or  for  worse,  and  to  practise  that  excellent 
matrimonial  precept  of  dwelUng  more  on  merits  than 
on  defects.' 

And  certainly  those  merits  were  not  inconsiderable, 
as  he  proceeded  to  show. 


CHAPTER  XV 

1900-1903. 

College  Historical  Society  —  Autumn  Session  —  Death  of  Queen 
Victoria  —  Her  Moral  Influence  —  Last  Revision  of  the 
'  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion '  —  Review  of  '  Mr.  Childers' 
Life'  —  Compulsory  Purchase  —  Serious  Illness  —  Harro- 
gate —  Vosbergen  —  Royal  Commission  on  Irish  Univer- 
sity Education  —  British  Academy  —  Torquay  —  Dublin 
—  Resignation  of  Seat  in  Parliament  —  Requisition  from 
Trinity  College  —  Postponement  of  Resignation  —  The 
Coronation  —  The  Order  of  Merit  —  Dinner  to  Lord  Rob- 
erts —  Last  Speech  —  Nauheim  —  Autumn  Session  —  Final 
Resignation  of  Seat  —  Publication  of  the  Revised  and  En- 
larged Edition  of  the  '  Leaders  of  Public  Opinion '  —  On 
Arbitration  —  On  an  English-speaking  Alliance  —  Italian 
Lakes  —  Land  Bill  of  1903  —  Fiscal  Question  —  Sir  Henry 
Wrixon  —  Crowborough  —  Mount  Browne  —  Increasing 
Ill-health  —  The  End  — St.  Patrick's  Cathedral  —  Statue 
in  Trinity  College  —  Tribute  from  Lord  Rathmore. 

Lecky  had  promised  to  attend  the  opening  meeting 
of  the  Historical  Society,  and  when  that  body  met  on 
November  7  he  found  himself  once  more  with  two  old 
friends  and  fellow  gold-medallists  —  the  Lord  Chancel- 
lor Lord  Ashbourne,  and  Lord  Justice  Fitzgibbon. 
The  subject  for  discussion  was  Trinity  College  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  Lecky  said  in  the  course  of  his 
speech  that  there  was  no  other  institution  which  was 
so  closely  connected  with  all  that  was  best  and  most 
illustrious  in  Irish  intellectual  life.     He  trusted  that 

390 


DEATH   OF   QUEEN   VICTORIA  391 

its  broad  unsectarian  basis  would  never  be  impaired, 
and  that  in  spite  of  increasing  difficulties  Trinity 
College  would  always  maintain  its  present  high  stand- 
ard. He  showed  how  necessary  it  was  in  these  days 
'  for  a  University  to  cultivate  a  vigilant  and  reforming 
spirit,  quick  to  avail  itself  of  opportunities,  keenly 
sensible  of  the  needs  and  tendencies  of  the  time.'  He 
did  'not  believe  there  ever  had  been  a  generation  in 
which  the  work  done  by  Fellows  and  Professors  of 
this  University  counted  for  so  much  in  the  great 
fields  of  literature,  science,  and  scholarship  as  in  the 
present,'  and  he  hoped  it  was  also  true  that  there  never 
was  a  time  when  there  was  a  better  spirit  and  a  higher 
tone  among  the  students. 

The  new  Parliament  met  for  a  fortnight  early  in 
December  in  order  to  vote  supplies  for  the  South  Afri- 
can war  and  for  the  operations  in  China.  The  retro- 
spect of  the  year  was  a  melancholy  one.  'I  never 
remember  a  year,'  wrote  Lecky, '  in  which  general  spec- 
ulation in  England  was  so  uniformly  pessimistic  — 
the  golden  age,  as  Mr.  Bryce  said,  much  further  from 
us  than  fifty  years  ago.'  ^  In  other  parts  of  the  Empire 
the  outlook  was  more  hopeful.  The  Australian  Colo- 
nies had  been  united  into  a  Commonwealth,  which  was 
inaugurated  with  great  rejoicings  on  January  1,  1901. 
It  was  the  crowning  event  of  a  great  reign. 

Queen  Victoria's  health  had  been  giving  anxiety  for 
some  time  past.  In  the  middle  of  January  she  became 
seriously  ill,  and  on  the  evening  of  the  22nd  she  died. 
The  universal  outburst  of  sorrow  at  the  sad  news 
showed  the  hold  she  had  over  the  affections  of  her 
people,  and  the  grief  for  her  loss  was  deepened  by  the 
regret  that  she  should  not  have  lived  to  see  the  end 


^  Commonplace  book,  December  31,  1900. 


392  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

of  the  war  which  had  cast  so  deep  a  shadow  over  the 
last  years  of  her  life  and  of  her  prosperous  reign.  After 
an  interval  of  sixty-four  years,  scarcely  anyone  remem- 
bered the  mode  of  procedure  on  the  accession  of  a  new 
sovereign.  The  day  after  the  Queen's  death  Lecky 
was  summoned  to  a  Council  meeting  at  the  Court, 
St.  James's  Palace.  The  King  made  a  short  impress- 
ive speech  and  took  the  oath.  The  Privy  Council 
were  sworn  in  collectively,  and  they  each  signed  the 
Proclamation  and  kissed  hands.  Parliament  met  that 
day  and  the  next  for  Peers  and  Commoners  to  be  sworn 
in,  and  on  the  third  day  to  receive  the  King's  Mes- 
sage. A  vote  of  condolence  was  moved  and  seconded 
in  both  Houses  and  they  afterwards  adjourned  till 
February  14.  Lecky  attended  the  service  in  St. 
George's  Chapel  —  an  imposing  ceremony  —  but  no 
ceremonial  pomp  could  add  to  the  solemnity  of  such 
a  funeral.  Those  who  saw  the  procession  pass  be- 
tween silent  and  mourning  crowds  thought  it  the  most 
impressive  sight  they  had  ever  seen. 

Lecky  was  asked  that  winter  to  write  about  the 
moral  influence  Queen  Victoria  had  exercised  during 
her  reign,  and  this  he  gladly  did  as  he  felt  strongly 
how  powerful  that  influence  had  been.  The  article 
appeared  in  the  Pall  Mall  Magazine  of  April,  and 
seemed  to  be  much  appreciated  as  a  true  picture  of 
the  Queen. ^ 

During  the  winter  of  1901  he  finished  revising  and 
partly  re-writing  the  'Life  of  Grattan,'  and  in  the 
spring  he  wrote  a  review  of  the  'Life  of  Mr.  Childers' 
for  the  Spectator.  The  early  part  of  the  Parliamen- 
tary   session   was    chiefly    occupied    with    the    South 


1  It  has  been  republished  among  the  Historical  and  Political 
Essays. 


COMPULSORY   PURCHASE  393 

African  war  and  the  Estimates.  Compulsory  pur- 
chase for  Ireland  had  now  become  a  popular  demand 
in  Ulster,  and  the  question  was  brought  forward  in 
the  debates  on  the  Address  by  a  motion  of  Mr. 
Redmond,  seconded  by  Mr.  T.  W.  Russell.  Lecky 
intended  to  have  spoken  on  the  subject,  but,  as 
frequently  happened  in  the  debates,  the  opportunity 
failed. 

His  views  may  be  shortly  summed  up.  Such  a 
scheme,  involving  an  advance  by  the  Treasury  of 
from  a  hundred  and  twenty  to  a  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  on  the  security  of  Irish  landed  property, 
seemed  to  him  altogether  outside  the  domain  of  prac- 
tical politics.  The  State  could  not  be  expected  to 
incur  the  enormous  financial  risk  of  constituting  itself 
for  a  long  period  the  universal  landlord  and  rent- 
collector  in  Ireland,  in  the  face  of  an  organisation 
whose  methods  of  policy  for  more  than  thirty  years 
had  been  open  breach  of  contract  and  strike  against 
rents.  Compulsory  purchase  would  not  give  pros- 
perity to  Ireland,  it  would  not  put  an  end  to  agitation, 
and  it  would  still  further  restrict  the  influence  of  those 
who  were  most  attached  to  the  Empire  antl  who  in 
innumerable  cases  were  the  chief  agents  of  civilisa- 
tion in  their  respective  districts  and  also  the  chief 
employers  of  labour.  The  whole  rental  of  Ireland 
would  be  carried  out  of  the  country,  and  would  drain 
Ireland  of  great  part  of  its  wealth,  while  the  shock 
given  to  contracts  and  to  the  security  of  all  property, 
by  taking  from  the  landlord  his  property  contrary 
to  his  will,  would  be  even  more  detrimental  to  the 
country. 

In  the  course  of  the  session  (March  13,  1901),  in  a 
debate  on  the  Congested  Districts  Board,  he  strongly 
opposed   a   Nationalist    Bill   proposing   among   other 


394  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

things  to  make  the  Board  more  representative.  It 
was  the  custom  of  Nationalists  to  decry  Castle  boards, 
but  these  boards,  he  said,  consisted  of  men  of  great 
ability  who  dealt  with  Irish  affairs  in  a  highly  impartial 
spirit,  whose  single  aim  was  to  improve  the  condition 
of  the  country,  and  he  was  sure  they  were  far  more 
representative  of  the  best  elements  of  Irish  life  than 
any  elective  body  they  were  likely  to  have. 

The  life  of  a  private  member  of  Parliament  was 
not  at  that  time  a  very  interesting  or  exhilarating 
one. 

'  We  are  having,'  he  wrote  from  the  House  of  Com- 
mons to  Mr.  Rusden,  the  Australian  historian,  March 
18,  1901,  'a  most  dreary  session  of  persistent  Irish 
obstruction  —  skilfully  carried  out  —  involving  divi- 
sions on  nearly  every  item,  and  bringing  with  it  very 
late  nights  and  a  general  dislocation  of  the  Parliamen- 
tary machine.  It  is  curious  how  through  the  influ- 
ence of  all  this  our  House  of  Commons  is  losing  its 
old  character  —  how  the  private  member  is  being 
turned  into  a  mere  voting-machine  —  how  the  power 
of  the  Cabinet  is  growing,  and  how,  through  the  exces- 
sive prolongation  of  debates  real  and  moderate  criti- 
cism of  Supply  is  becoming  more  and  more  difficult. 
I  think  some  of  our  Ministers  are  getting  very  tired  of 
their  position  and  would  gladly  get  out  of  it  were  there 
anyone  who  could  take  their  places.' 

Lecky  had  not  been  feeling  strong  for  some  time, 
and  in  the  spring  he  had  an  attack  of  influenza  followed 
by  dilatation  of  the  heart.  Though  he  got  better  at 
first,  he  now  felt  that  he  had  '  a  broken  wing,'  and  he 
never  quite  recovered.  As  soon  as  he  was  well  enough 
to  move  he  went  to  Brighton,  and  he  was  able  to  go 
back  to  the  House  of  Commons  after  the  Easter  holi- 
days. 


ILLNESS  395 

(To  Mr.  Booth.)  House  of  Commons:  May  23, 
1901.  — .  .  .  'I  have  had  rather  a  serious  illness 
lately  —  an  attack  of  what  the  doctor  did  not  find  out 
to  be  influenza,  having  acted  as  influenza  apparently 
often  does,  lessening  the  action  of  my  heart,  involving 
three  weeks  in  bed  and  two  or  three  other  weeks  of 
complete  suppression  of  work.  My  doctors  say  I  am 
getting  all  right  and  may  look  forward  to  a  complete 
cure,  but  at  present  I  feel  much  like  an  octogenarian 
capable  of  only  walking  about  half  a  mile,  considering 
a  flight  of  stairs  a  formidable  undertaking,  and  much 
delighting  in  bath-chairs.  I  spent  a  fortnight  under 
these  conditions  at  Brighton,  living  a  vegetable  life, 
which  much  improved  me,  and  I  am  returning  there 
for  a  week  during  the  Whitsuntide  holidays,  which 
begin  to-morrow.  I  had  to  preside  over  a  great  dinner 
of  the  Irish  graduates,  who  are  making  a  presentation 
to  Lord  Roberts  of  a  piece  of  plate,  but  owing  to  the 
continuance  of  the  war  this  has  been  indefinitely  post- 
poned. The  only  literary  work  I  have  lately  pubfished 
has  been  an  article  on  the  Queen  in  the  Pall  Mall 
Magazine  of  May.  ...  I  hope  now  to  get  back  to  a 
little  Uterary  work,  though  I  fear  that  I  shall  have  for 
some  considerable  time  to  lead  an  invalid  life,  and 
not  being  able  to  walk  is  to  me  a  great  privation.' 

Parliamentary  life  did  not  now  suit  his  health  — 
indeed,  it  is  questionable  whether  it  ever  did  —  and 
his  doctor  advised  him  to  give  it  up;  but  there  was 
hope  at  that  time  of  his  health  improving,  and  he 
wished  if  possible  to  stay  during  that  Parliament, 
meaning  to  resign  his  seat  at  the  next  general  election, 
as  he  had  always  intended.  Trinity  College  showed 
great  concern  and  consideration,  and  expressed  the 
earnest  hope  that  he  would  take  his  Parliamentary 
duties  lightly  and  do  all  he  could  for  his  restoration 
to  health.  He  continued  to  attend  as  regularly  as 
he  could,  and  to  give  the  same  attention  to  all  ques- 


396  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

tions  in  which  his  constituents  were  specially  inter- 
ested. He  always  felt  that  one  could  do  indirectly 
and  quietly  some  real  good.  The  few  times  he  still 
spoke  during  that  session,  whether  it  was  on  the  case 
of  Dr.  Long^  —  who  had  been  persecuted  at  Limerick 
for  carrying  on  a  Protestant  medical  mission  —  or 
in  support  of  an  amendment  of  the  Lords  on  the  equal- 
isation of  Dublin  rates,  his  arguments  were  always  on 
the  side  of  justice  and  moderation,  and  above  party 
considerations.  He  endeavoured  when  he  could  to 
be  a  pacifying  influence,  but  found  it  none  too  easy. 

He  wrote  at  that  time  to  Judge  Gowan,  who  had 
made  inquiries  after  his  health: 

'  We  have  had  a  dull  and  unsatisfactory  session,  but 
of  course  a  great  war,  with  its  comphcated  finance  and 
the  many  arrangements  required  by  a  new  reign, 
account  for  much;  systematic  and  very  skilfully  led 
obstruction  from  the  Irish  benches  accounts  for  still 
more;  and  Ministers  who  have  been  in  office  for  six 
years  are  a  good  deal  worn  out,  and  in  the  absence  of 
any  stimulating  opposition  are  apt  to  become  very 
apathetic.  Before  very  long  we  shall  have  to  revise 
our  procedure,  which  is  in  many  respects  not  only 
faulty  but  absurd,  and  now  that  the  census  shows 
that  the  population  of  Scotland  for  the  first  time 
exceeds  that  of  Ireland,  the  fact  that  Ireland  has 
thirty-one  more  members  than  Scotland  cannot  be 
long  ignored.  In  the  next  session,  however,  our  work 
is  laid  out  —  a  large  Education  Bill  —  a  Bill  relating 


^Lecky  dissociated  himself  Dr.  Long  had  been  subjected, 

from  Dr.  Long's  methods,  for  and  he  warned  Irish  members 

he   did   not,    as   he   said,   Hke  that   their   attitude  was  fatal 

'the  mixture  of  theology  and  to  the  objects  Irish  Catholics 

medicine, '    but    he    protested  had  at  heart, 
against  the  treatment  to  which 


HARROGATE  397 

to  the  London  water-supply,  and  an  Irish  Land  Bill. 
Parliament  as  a  working  machine  is  steadily  and 
rapidly  declining,  and  under  the  present  coiklitions  of 
parliamentary  hfe  a  very  few  contentious  measures 
can  be  made  to  absorb  a  session.' 

Lecky  once  more  wrote  his  views  on  the  South 
African  war,  at  the  request  of  Dr.  Miinz,  of  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse,  whom  he  had  met  at  Vienna  in  LS9G 
and  who  was  anxious  to  have  a  letter  from  him  which 
might  be  published  in  that  paper.  The  war  was  then 
being  fought  to  a  finish,  and  Lecky  deplored  that 
peace  could  not  have  been  made  after  the  taking  of 
Pretoria,  since  the  result  was  then  no  longer  doubt- 
ful. He  said  he  thought  the  elections  and  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Liberal  party  must  have  convinced 
foreigners  of  the  absolute  certainty  that  the  English 
people  meant  to  and  could  carry  the  war  to  a  conclu- 
sion. The  task  of  reconstruction  would  be  an  ex- 
tremely difficult  one,  but  he  was  sanguine  as  to  the 
effects  of  good  government  in  the  future,  and  of  a 
liberal  treatment  of  the  Boers;  and  he  repeated  that 
he  hoped  that  British  and  Boers  would  have  learnt 
to  respect  each  other,  and  that  after  a  period  of  Crown 
Government  federation  would  follow. 

He  left  London  with  his  wife  early  in  August  for 
Harrogate,  where  he  had  been  advised  to  do  a  cure. 
He  found  several  friends,  and  the  good  air  and  waters 
were  very  beneficial  to  him.  Lord  Roberts  happened 
to  be  there,  and  Lecky  had  more  than  one  pleasant 
and  interesting  talk  with  him  while  they  were  both 
drinking  the  waters. 

To  Mr.  Booth  he  wrote  from  Harrogate  that  he  would 
be  sorry  not  to  get  through  that  Parliament,  that 
T.C.D.  was  'angelic  as  a  constituency,'  giving  him 
the  greatest  freedom,  and  when  Parliament  was  not 


398  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

sitting  asking  nothing  from  him  except  an  occasional 
letter  applying  for  a  place  for  a  constituent: 

*  I  don't  mean,'  he  wrote,  *  to  do  any  original  writ- 
ing, at  least  for  a  long  time,  but  I  hope  to  rewrite  my 
"Leaders"  up  to  the  level  of  my  present  knowledge 
and  matured  judgment,  and  perhaps  to  be  able  in 
the  course  of  time  to  republish  in  a  somewhat  extended 
as  well  as  corrected  form,  a  good  many  essays  I  have 
from  time  to  time  written.  I  think  the  Government 
were  quite  right  in  dropping  the  proposal  for  changing 
the  transubstantiation  declaration.  It  did  no  one 
any  harm,  and  I  have  abundant  evidence  of  the  strong 
feeling  in  the  country  against  tampering  with  it.  The 
question  of  the  children  in  the  pubhc-houses  was  the 
only  one  of  the  last  measures  in  which  I  took  much 
interest,  though  I  have  a  general  feeling  against  the 
increased  meddhng  of  Governments  with  adult,  and 
especially  female  labour.  We  have,  I  think,  gone  too 
far  in  this  direction.' 

The  remainder  of  the  summer  was  spent  at  Vos- 
bergen,  where  the  restful  life  suited  him  exactly. 
Though  he  could  not  now  take  the  same  long  walks 
over  the  downs  as  before,  he  regained  strength  by 
degrees  and  was  able  to  write  to  his  stepmother  at 
the  end  of  his  stay  in  Holland. 

Amsterdam.  —  'I  think  the  very  quiet  life  and  the 
very  good  air  of  Vosbergen  have  done  me  great  good. 
The  marked  increase  in  my  walking  power  is  an  indis- 
putable sign,'  and  he  added,  'I  am  always  struck  in 
Holland  with  the  extreme  politeness  and  courtesy  of 
all  classes,  and  this  year  it  is  specially  admirable  on 
account  of  the  intense  feeling  about  the  South  African 
war.'  .  .  . 

Lecky  always  keenly  appreciated  any  good  work 
done  for  Ireland,  and  he  had  followed  for  some  time 


THE   UNIVERSITY  QUESTION  399 

past  with  much  interest  and  sympathy  the  historical 
studies  of  a  friend  of  his,  Mr.  C.  Litton  Falkiner.' 
On  liis  return  home  he  wrote  to  him : 

October  28,  1901.  —  'I  have  only  just  returned  to 
England  from  the  Continent,  which  must  be  my  apol- 
ogy for  not  having  before  thanked  you  for  your  most 
valuable  paper  on  PhcBnix  Park.  It  is  full  of  informa- 
tion which  is  new  to  me,  and  has  interested  me  much. 
I  am  sincerely  delighted  that  you  are  devoting  your- 
self so  steadily  to  Irish  history,  which  is  so  seldom 
treated  with  real  learning  and  impartiahty.  I  fear  it 
is  rather  a  thankless  task,  but  it  is  rendering  a  very 
genuine  service  to  our  country.' 

The  Irish  Roman  Catholic  University  question  was 
now  coming  more  and  more  to  the  front.  In  March 
1901  a  deputation  from  the  senate  of  the  Irish  Royal 
University  requested  the  Lord  Lieutenant  to  appoint 
a  Royal  Commission  to  inquire  into  the  working  of 
the  Royal  University  in  relation  to  the  educational 
needs  of  the  country.  A  Royal  Commission  was  sub- 
sequently appointed  to  inquire  into  Irish  University 
education  generally — leaving  Trinity  College,  however, 
out  of  the  terms  of  reference.  Lecky  gave  evidence  be- 
fore it  on  December  18,  and  he  once  more  fully  stated 
his  views.  His  conclusion  was  that  he  did  not  believe 
that  Ireland  needed,  or  could  bear  without  injury, 
another  great  establishment  of  mixed  education.  Ire- 
land being  a  poor  country,  most  people  were  obliged 
as  early  as  possible  to  earn  their  own  livelihood  and 
cared  little  about  higher  education  for  its  own  sake. 
It  was   therefore  very   difficult   to   keep   up   a   high 


1  Author  of  Studies  in  Irish      serious  loss  to  Ireland  as  well 
History,  and  other  works.    His      as  to  his  friends, 
premature  death  has  been  a 


400  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

standard  of  University  education,  and  a  multiplicity 
of  Universities  was  almost  sure  to  lower  the  type. 
He  did  not  see  the  advantage  of  setting  up  educa- 
tional institutions  ostensibly  unsectarian,  but  certain 
to  become  in  their  actual  working  intensely  sectarian. 
He  maintained  the  view  he  had  expressed  before,  that 
the  best  way  to  satisfy  the  Roman  Catholic  demands 
was  to  give  a  substantial  grant  to  University  College, 
Stephen's  Green. 

There  had  now  been  for  some  time  a  movement  on 
foot  for  establishing  an  Academy  of  Literary  Science. 
While  the  Royal  Society  represented  Natural  Science, 
there  was  no  equivalent  body  in  England  to  represent 
historical,  philosophical,  and  philological  studies.  The 
want  of  this  was  not  fully  realised  until  an  International 
Association,  comprising  two  sections  —  natural  science 
and  literary  science  —  was  formed  in  1S99,  and  meet- 
ings of  the  chief  scientific  and  literary  academies  of 
the  world  were  organised  by  it.  The  first  of  these 
meetings  was  held  at  Paris  in  1900,  and  the  conspicu- 
ous absence  of  representatives  of  English  literature 
was  much  remarked  and  regretted.  When  it  was 
decided  to  hold  the  next  international  meeting  in 
London  in  1904,  the  necessity  to  provide  for  the 
deficiency  was  still  more  urgently  felt.  The  Royal 
Society,  after  many  deliberations,  having  found  it 
undesirable  to  enlarge  its  scope,  several  representa- 
tive men  combined  in  1901  to  consider  the  matter 
independently,  and  the  result  was  the  foundation  of 
an  academy  for  the  promotion  of  historical,  philosoph- 
ical, and  philological  studies.  Belles  lettres,  as 
such  —  not  forming  part  of  scientific  literature  —  were 
excluded  from  the  programme.  Lecky  did  not  take 
part  in  the  proceedings  that  led  to  the  formation  of 
the  British  Academy,  but  he  was  elected  among  the 


INVALID   LIFE  401 

first  Fellpws  of  the  now  body.  The  Academy  held 
its  first  meeting  at  the  British  Museum,  on  December 
17,  1901,  and  was  incorporated  by  Royal  Charter  in 
the  following  year. 

Lecky  shortened  the  winter  by  going  with  his  wife 
to  Torquay  till  the  meeting  of  Parliament  in  January. 
He  always  thought  Torquay  a  most  attractive  place, 
with  much  of  the  charm  of  the  Riviera,  and  he  enjoyed 
his  quiet  stay  there.  He  was  now  working  at  the 
'  Life  of  O'Connell,'  and  as  usual  doing  a  good  deal  of 
miscellaneous  reading.  There  are  few  personal  allu- 
sions in  his  commonplace  books,  but  the  year  1901 
closes  with  the  words:  'My  first  year  of  invalid  life.' 
Lord  Dufferin  died  that  winter  and  Lecky  much 
deplored  his  loss.  'The  death  of  Lord  Dufferin,'  he 
wrote  to  Mr.  Rusden,  'removes,  in  my  judgment,  a 
really  great  man,  and  one  specially  needed  in  Ireland.'^ 
Lord  Dufferin  had  a  true  insight  into  Lecky's  character. 
Speaking  of  Lecky,  he  once  said^  to  the  writer  of  these 
lines,  '  I  never  saw  so  much  gentleness  combined  with 
so  much  strength.' 

The  early  part  of  the  session  of  1902  was  taken  up 
with  the  debates  on  the  new  Procedure  Rules,  includ- 
ing increased  penalties  for  disorder.^     He  felt,  however, 


1  At  the  dinner  given  by  was  shown  by  an  episode  in 
the  Irish  graduates  to  Lord  which  a  member  used  some 
Roberts,  Lecky  in  his  speech  very  unparliamentary  Ian- 
paid  a  tribute  to  Lord  Duf-  guage.  It  so  happened  that 
ferin,  which  has  been  quoted  when  the  division  bell  rang 
by  Sir  Alfred  Lyall  in  hia  for  members  to  vote  on  the 
Life  of  the  Marquis  of  Dufferin  suspension  of  the  delinquent, 
and  Ava.  some  of  them  were  receiving 

^  At  Clandeboye,  in  October  a    deputation    of    lady    grad- 

1897.  uates  who  had  come  to  pre- 

^  The  necessity  for  these  sent  a  petition  to  Parliament 
27 


402  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

more  and  more  that  his  state  of  health  made  him  unfit 
for  Parhamentary  Hfe,  and  his  doctors  did  not  cease 
to  urge  that  he  should  give  it  up.  He  was  obliged  to 
avoid  late  hours  and  the  excitement  of  speaking,  and 
he  disliked  extremely  filling  a  place  when  he  could  no 
longer  discharge  all  its  duties.  At  Whitsuntide  he 
expressed  his  wish  to  resign;  but  he  received  an  urgent 
letter,  signed  by  the  Fellows  of  Trinity  College,  asking 
him  not  to  do  so,  but  rather  to  take  a  long  leave  of 
absence  that  might  restore  his  health  and  enable  him 
not,  indeed,  to  resume  the  unremitting  attendance 
that  had  been  so  detrimental  to  him,  but  at  all  events 
to  interpose  in  debate  when  the  interests  of  the  Uni- 
versity required  it.  Lecky  was  much  touched  by  the 
letter,  but  he  explained  that  apart  from  late  hours  and 
speaking,  which  he  had  already  had  to  give  up  that 
session,  'the  many  little  duties,  embarrassments,  and 
perplexing  and  agitating  circumstances  that  are  in- 
separably connected  with  the  life  of  an  M.P.'  were 
incompatible  with  the  quiet  life  that  was  imperatively 
prescribed  for  him.  As  he  wished,  however,  to  suit 
the  convenience  of  Trinity  College,  he  would  give  up 
his  intention  for  the  present,  though  he  felt  that  he 
could  not  go  on  for  very  long  representing  the  Univer- 
sity. 

*It  is  generally  felt  in  Trinity  College,'  wrote  the 


in  favour  of  women's  suffrage.  be  exposed  to  be  called  such 

Lecky,    on    returning    to    the  names.     He  said   he  thought 

deputation,  explained  the  rea-  that    some    of    the    qualities 

son  of  his  temporary  absence,  women  brought  to  legislation 

and  turned   the  episode  into  were  desirable,   but  that  the 

an  object-lesson,  asking  them  emotional  element  was  already 

how  they  would  like  a  seat  in  Bufficiently  represented. 
Parliament,  where  they  would 


THE   CORONATION  403 

Dean  of  St.  Patrick's  (ex-Fellow  of  the  College),  'that 
your  retirement  from  the  House  of  Commons  would  be 
a  very  serious  matter  for  the  University.  ...  I  hope 
that  you  understand  our  sincere  wish  that  you  should 
continue  to  represent  us,  even  though  your  health 
may  not  permit  you  to  take  part  in  'all-night'  sit- 
tings or  even  to  attend  all  party  divisions.  What  we 
are  anxious  to  retain  for  ourselves  is  the  influence  of 
your  name,  and  we  feel  it  important,  not  only  for  our- 
selves but  for  University  representation  all  over  the 
kingdom,  that  a  man  of  your  eminence  should  repre- 
sent Dublin  in  the  House  of  Commons.  I  know  that 
it  would  be  distasteful  to  you  to  retain  your  seat  and 
not  attend  the  House  with  regularity,  but  I  beg  of 
you  to  weigh  our  view  of  the  case.  You  will  do  us  a 
great  service  if  you  remain  in  the  House,^ 

and  Lecky's  correspondent  added  that  this  feeUng  was 
unanimous. 

The  position,  however,  continued  to  be  unpleasant, 
all  the  more  because  there  were  persistent  rumours  of 
his  leaving  the  House  of  Commons,  and  his  place  was 
being  actively  canvassed. 

The  great  event  of  the  year  was  the  coronation,  which 
was  to  take  place  on  June  26.  The  general' wish  that 
the  war  might  come  to  an  end  before  then  was  happily 
fulfilled,  and  nothing  seemed  likely  to  mar  the  public 
rejoicings  till,  on  the  afternoon  of  June  24,  when  all 
London  had  assumed  a  festive  appearance,  the  start- 
ling news  spread  that  the  King  was  seriously  ill  and 
that  everything  was  postponed.  At  the  very  moment 
when  the  eager  anticipations  of  many  months  had 
reached  their  climax  they  were  suddenly  dashed  to 
the  ground  and  made  place  for  universal  consterna- 
tion and  anxiety.  The  contrast  was  tragic  and  over- 
whelming. 

'  You  may  imagine,'  wrote  Lecky  to  a  foreign  rela- 


404  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

tion,  'the  emotions  of  hope  and  fear  we  have  gone 
through  last  week.  The  first  days  the  best  author- 
ities thought  the  chances  much  against  the  King,  but 
the  critical  days  are  the  first,  second,  and  third,  and 
these  are  happily  over,  and  all  accounts  very  encourag- 
ing. Indeed,  people  are  even  beginning  to  speculate 
over  the  time  when  the  coronation  may  actually  take 
place,' 

On  the  occasion  of  the  coronation  the  King  had 
instituted  the  Order  of  Merit,  and  Lecky  was  one  of 
the  twelve  recipients. 

'Thank  you  so  much,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth,  'for 
your  kind  congratulations.  My  new  feather  will,  I 
hope,  at  least  have  the  advantage  of  stopping  for  the 
present  a  large  amount  of  gossip  about  me  which  has 
of  late  been  going  on.  It  is  quite  true  that  I  am  very 
tired  of  Parliamentary  life,  for  I  find  that  a  proper  dis- 
charge of  my  duties  is  now  quite  beyond  my  powers, 
and  I  am  obliged  to  restrict  myself  absolutely  to  the 
afternoon  sittings  and  to  abstain  from  all  the  agita- 
tion of  speaking.  I  wished  to  have  given  it  up  at 
Whitsuntide,  but  the  whole  body  of  my  Fellows  have 
sent  me  a  petition  not  to  do  so,  saying  they  do  not 
wish  me  to  attend  with  any  regularity,  but  that  it 
would  be  very  injurious  to  the  University  if  I  gave  it 
up.  I  am  compromising  the  matter  by  pairing  from 
after  the  Roberts  dinner,  and  going  to  Nauheim. 
About  next  year  I  can  make  no  promise,  and  at  pres- 
ent let  the  matter  drift.  I  hope  T.C.D.  may  soon 
evolve  some  brilliant,  youthful  Uterary  candidate  who 
may  take  my  place.'  .  .  . 

The  graduates  of  the  Irish  Universities  had  combined 
for  some  time  past  to  give  a  dinner  and  a  presentation 
of  plate  to  Lord  Roberts,  and  they  had  asked  Lecky  to 
be  chairman  of  their  Committee  and  to  preside  over 
the  dinner.     By  Lord  Roberts'  desire  it  had  been  post- 


AUTUMN   SESSION  405 

poned,  as  has  been  said,  till  the  war  was  over,  and  the 
date  was  now  fixed  for  July  8.  Locky  was  physically 
very  unfit  to  undertake  the  task  of  presiding,  but  he 
was  the  last  man  to  shirk  a  duty.  It  was  a  great  occa- 
sion, as  it  was  the  first  of  the  many  dinners  that  were 
given  to  Lord  Roberts,  and  a  large  number  of  dis- 
tinguished Irishmen  assembled  to  do  honour  to  him. 
When  Lecky  rose  to  speak,  his  pale,  delicate  face  be- 
trayed how  great  the  effort  was,  but  his  strength  of 
will  conquered  and  those  who  heard  him  felt  he  had 
never  spoken  better. 

Two  days  after  he  went  to  Nauheim.  The  corona- 
nation  was  fixed  for  August  9,  and  the  investiture  of 
the  Order  of  Merit  for  the  8th,  but  the  doctor  would 
not  allow  Lecky  to  break  his  cure,^  and  he  was  unable 
for  the  same  reason  to  be  present  at  the  dinner  which 
the  members  of  the  Athenaeum  gave  in  honour  of  the 
recipients  of  the  Order.  He  had  looked  forward  to 
some  quiet  weeks  at  Vosbergen  after  his  cure,  but 
unfortunately  this  plan  was  frustrated.  His  step- 
mother. Lady  Carnwath,  who  was  eighty-two,  had 
been  failing  for  some  time  past,  and  she  was  now  in  a 
precarious  condition.  Barely  had  he  been  two  days 
in  Holland  when  bad  news  determined  him  to  return 
at  once  to  England.  She  lingered  on  till  October  16, 
when  she  died.  To  Lecky  it  meant  the  loss  of  one 
upon  whom  he  had  always  looked  as  a  mother,  and 
the  break-up  of  old  associations  was  painful  to  him. 
Meanwhile  Parliament  met  for  an  autumn  session  on 
the  Education  Bill,  the  chief  measure  of  the  year. 
Lecky  supported  it  and  thought  it  on  the  whole  a 
fair  compromise.  He  did  not  think,  however,  that 
the  Commons  should  have  accepted  the  Lords'  amend- 


1  He  was  invested  on  his  return  in  October. 


406  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

ment  throwing  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  buildings  on 
the  rates. 

*We  are,  on  the  whole,  in  many  respects  behindhand 
in  education,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Rusden,  the  Australian 
historian,  December  23,  1902,  'and  I  hope  this  will 
bring  us  into  line  with  other  nations,  but  it  is  depress- 
ing to  see  how  many  good  authorities  are  of  opinion 
that  in  the  rural  districts  education  is  engendering  an 
extreme  distaste  for  rural  life  and  labour  and  driving 
multitudes  to  wretched  and  debiUtating  existences  in 
the  great  towns.  I  write  rather  under  the  impression 
of  Rider  Haggard's  very  interesting  survey  of  the  agri- 
cultural condition  of  England  —  a  book  which  has 
much  impressed  me.  On  the-  whole,  it  is  very  difficult 
to  find  the  true  way  in  politics  and  the  world  has  so 
long  been  mismanaged  by  men  that  I  am  inclined  to 
look  with  some  toleration  on  the  "  monstrous  regimen 
of  women"  you  seem  establishing  in  AustraUa.' 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1902  Lecky  wrote  to  the  Pro- 
vost of  Trinity  College  definitely  resigning  his  seat. 
Many  were  the  expressions  of  regret  that  he  received, 
and  they  touched  him  very  much. 

'My  dear  Bernard,'  he  wrote  to  the  Dean  of  St. 
Patrick's,  '  Thank  you  very  much  for  your  most  kind 
letter.  My  feelings  about  my  resignation  are  very 
mixed.  No  constituency  could  have  been  more  indul- 
gent to  a  member  than  mine  has  been,  and  I  deeply 
feel  loosening  the  tie  that  has  connected  us.  But  my 
doctor  has  been  urging  it  for  nearly  a  year,  and  during 
this  Parliament  I  have  been  obliged  to  shirk  the  late 
nights,  to  abstain  from  the  excitement  of  speaking, 
and  to  be,  in  fact,  little  more  than  a  voting-machine. 
I  hate  mortally  filling  a  post  when  I  feel  I  cannot  prop- 
erly discharge  its  duties;  the  next  session  will  be  a 
very  important  and  arduous  one  for  Irish  members, 
and  the  T.C.D.  members  are  the  only  representatives 


RESIGNATION   OF   SEAT   IN    PARLIAMENT         407 

of  Unionist  Ireland  in  three  provinces.  I  cannot 
throw  off  the  feeling  of  heavy  responsibility  and  am 
glad  to  descend  from  the  stage  to  the  stalls.  ...  I 
wish,'  he  added  in  a  postscript,  'T.C.D.  would  carry 
out  their  scheme  of  giving  degrees  to  women.' 

To  Mr.  Booth  he  wrote  that  he  neither  had  the 
strength  nor  the  nerve  to  encounter  the  wear  and  tear 
of  a  session  which  was  likely  to  be  chiefly  Irish,  and  he 
adds 

'I  am  sorry  for  my  constituents,  who  were  very 
anxious  not  to  be  looked  on  as  in  the  hands  of  lawyers 
aiming  at  professional  success,  but  unfortunately  it 
is  impossible  for  those  engaged  in  T.C.D.  work  to  take 
a  Parhamentary  part  as  Anson  does  for  Oxford  or 
Jebb  for  Cambridge,  which  are  within  one  and  a  half 
hours  of  London.  I  wish,  like  you,  the  Catholics  and 
Protestants  mixed,  but  T.C.D.  has  offered  the  Catholics 
a  divinity  professor  of  their  own,  and  has  thrown  open 
everything  to  them,  and  a  Catholic  College  in  our 
University  would  mean  a  strong  Cathohc  ecclesiastical 
and  nominated  element  on  the  governing  body  of  the 
University,  which  would,  I  think,  lead  to  much  evil.' 

The  many  notices  that  appeared  in  the  "papers  on 
his  resignation  read  to  him  almost  like  an  obituary. 
Most  of  them  recognised  the  position  he  had  made  for 
himself  in  the  first  Parliament  he  sat  in,  but  the  truest 
comment  was  probably  that  made  by  Lord  Rathmore 
at  the  unveiling  of  Lecky's  statue  in  Trinity  College : 

'  It  was  a  high  trial  for  a  man  at  his  time  of  life  to 
enter  on  a  new  career,  but  having  once  undertaken  the 
duty  he  fulfilled  it  with  the  same  self-devotion  as  had 
governed  him  through  every  hour  of  his  life.  He  spoke 
on  many  Irish  topics,  and  eager  audiences  were  always 
ready  to  Usten  with  delight  to  his  eloquence  and  his 
humour,  but  the  period  at  which  he  entered  ParUament 


408  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

was  one  of  comparative  repose  and  reaction  on  those 
questions.  The  battle  of  Home  Rule  had  been  fought 
out.  The  cause  of  the  Union,  for  which  he  had  pleaded 
so  earnestly,  was  for  the  time  shielded  by  large  major- 
ities in  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  and  the  occasions 
on  which  he  spoke  did  not  give  him  much  scope  for  the 
exercise  of  his  highest  powers.' 

At  the  same  time  it  was  gratifying  to  hear  from  more 
than  one  source  that  he  had  exerted  a  most  valuable, 
and  it  was  to  be  hoped  permanent,  influence  in  helping 
to  enlarge  the  vision  of  loyal  men  in  Ireland,  and  of 
Englishmen  about  Ireland.  His  political  life  was  in 
harmony  with  his  writings.  '  He  has,'  said  the  Edin- 
burgh Review,'^  speaking  of  his  services  to  Irish  history, 
'infused  into  Irish  criticism,  and  we  may  even  say 
into  Irish  politics,  an  amenity  of  tone  and  a  spirit  of 
historical  charity  which  have  already  sensibly  miti- 
gated the  asperities  of  controversy.' 

The  '  Leaders'  came  out  in  the  spring  of  1903.  Swift 
was  not  now  included,  his  biography  having  been  used, 
as  previously  stated,  in  an  enlarged  and  revised  form 
as  an  introduction  to  Bell's  edition  of  Swift's  '  Works.' 
Lecky  had  replaced  it  by  an  introductory  sketch  of 
the  earlier  phases  of  Irish  history  since  the  Revolution. 
Flood  and  Grattan  formed  one  volume,  while  the  whole 
second  volume  was  devoted  to  O'Connell.  It  will  be 
remembered  how  Lecky  had  grown  up  among  the  tra- 
ditions of  these  statesmen;  and  to  the  vividness  of  his 
early  impressions  he  had  now  been  able  to  add  the 
result  of  his  later  researches  and  the  conclusions  of  a 
maturer  judgment.  The  exhaustive  manner  in  which 
he  had  treated  the  subject  was  recognised  in  the  Re- 
views.    The  'Life  of  O'Connell'   had  been  the  most 


1  July  1903,  '  The  Social  Revolution  in  Ireland.' 


ON    ARBITRATION  409 

important  part  of  the  revision.  'It  forms,  in  effect,' 
as  the  Saturday  Review  said,  'a  new  work  embracing 
materials  not  available  when  the  first  draft  was  written, 
and  supplies  by  far  the  best  account  yet  provided  of 
the  history  of  Ireland,  from  the  Union  to  the  potato 
famine.'  'In  no  other  work  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted,' said  the  writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Review 
who  has  already  been  quoted,  '  is  the  history  of  Ireland 
from  the  Union  to  the  famine  reviewed  with  such 
fulness,  such  fairness,  and  such  suggestiveness.' 

The  appreciative  reviewer  of  the  earliest  edition  of 
the  'Leaders,'  Mr.  O'Neill  Daunt,  was  now  dead,  but 
an  enthusiastic  review  came  once  more  from  Cork; 
'the  critical  study  of  the  career  and  character  of  the 
Liberator,'  said  the  Cork  Constitution,  'is  as  faultless 
in  its  amazing  grasp  of  facts  and  causes  as  in  its  literary 
style  and  its  judicial  impartiality.'  Lecky  had  in- 
tended sending  the  book  to  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy, 
whose  comments  would  have  been  most  interesting 
to  him,  but  in  the  February  of  that  year  Sir  Charles 
had  died.  It  had  long  been  Lecky's  wish  to  rewrite 
this  book,  and  he  was  pleased  to  have  accomplished 
it,  but  he  felt  the  moment  for  publishing  it  was  not 
propitious,  for  the  interest  in  Irish  affairs  had  now 
greatly  waned  and  Irish  history  was  not  a  popular 
subject. 

Among  many  other  things,  he  was  asked  at  that  time 
to  write  down  a  few  reminiscences  of  an  old  friend, 
Miss  Anna  Swanwick,  for  a  memoir  which  a  relation  of 
hers  was  preparing.  He  was  also  asked  by  the  editor 
of  the  New  York  World  to  give  his  views  on  Arbitra- 
tion for  that  paper,  which  was  celebrating  its  twentieth 
anniversary.  The  question  whether  arbitration  might 
one  day  supersede  war  was,  of  course,  of  paramount 
importance.     Lecky  thought  that  its  progress  depended 


410  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 

much  less  upon  'any  formal  treaties  or  enactments 
than  upon  the  gradual  education  of  the  great  masses 
of  the  population,  creating  among  them  a  deep  senti- 
ment both  of  the  folly  and  of  the  wickedness  of  war.' 
In  many  minor  questions  which  did  not  vitally  touch 
the  interests  or  passions  of  men  a  tribunal  of  inter- 
national arbitration  would  be  constantly  resorted  to; 
it  would  strengthen  the  position  of  the  smaller  nations ; 
it  would  give  statesmen  time  to  pause  at  critical  mo- 
ments, and  if  it  could  not  prevent  wars  it  might  often 
help  to  shorten  them.  Much,  he  thought,  might  be 
done  by  arbitration,  but  a  great  revolution  of  public 
sentiment  alone  could  put  an  end  to  wars,  and  to  the 
vast  preparations  for  war  that  were  now  so  gravely 
retarding  the  progress  of  mankind. 

An  American  newspaper  syndicate  wished  to  have 
Lecky's  opinion  on  the  basis  of  an  English-speaking 
alliance,  and  while  he  was  in  Italy  in  the  spring  he 
wrote  a  short  paper  on  the  subject.  The  sum  of  it  was 
that  it  did  not  seem  to  him  probable  that  the  relations 
of  England  and  the  United  States  would  take  the  form 
of  any  general  or  permanent  alliance,  as  on  both 
sides  of  the  water  the  feeling  in  favour  of  reserving  full 
liberty  of  action  was  very  strong.  '  Limited  alliance 
aiming  at  special  objects,  such  as  the  freedom  of  com- 
merce in  the  East,  may  very  probably  arise,  but  on 
the  whole  the  unity  of  the  English-speaking  races  is 
likely  to  depend  much  more  on  the  increasing  power 
of  common  sympathies,  common  principles,  and  com- 
mon interests.' 

Lecky  and  his  wife  had  hoped  to  find  sunshine  on 
the  Italian  Lakes  in  May,  but  the  spring  was  very 
inclement  and  it  was  not  till  after  a  fortnight,  spent 
partly  at  Cadenabbia  and  at  Villa  d'Este  in  cold  and 
rainy  weather,  that  they  at  last  had  some  lovely  days 


HOME    BILL   OF    1903  411 

at  Baveno  and  could  row  on  the  lake,  which  always 
was  an  enjoyment  to  Lecky,  and  doubly  so  now  that 
he  could  take  no  exercise.  When  he  returned  home 
early  in  June  he  resumed  for  a  short  time  more  or  less 
his  ordinary  life :  he  now  missed  the  interest  of  Parlia- 
ment, being  entirely  cut  off  from  active  politics,  and 
he  also  missed  the  interest  of  his  book,  which  was 
finished;  but  he  began  to  revise  some  of  the  essays 
which  have  been  mentioned  in  the  course  of  this  Me- 
moir. He  had  been  elected  president  for  the  year  of 
the  Royal  Literary  Fund,  but  unfortunately  the  state 
of  his  health  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  fulfil  the 
task  of  presiding  over  the  dinner. 

The  chief  measure  of  the  session  was  the  Irisli  Lund 
Bill,  and  Lecky  followed  it  with  keen  interest.  He  had 
long  been  in  favour  of  the  Government  assisting  and 
accelerating  land  purchase,  as  the  only  remedy  for 
getting  Ireland  out  of  the  chaos  into  which  the  land 
legislation  had  plunged  her. 

*I  think,'  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Booth  in  the  summer,  'the 
Land  Bill  will  produce  immediate  good  results  to  land- 
lords and  tenants,  but  not  to  other  classes,  and  I 
believe  that  in  the  long  run  it  is  likely  to  drain  Ire- 
land of  much  money,  to  lower  the  Protestant  and 
civilising  influences,  and  to  act  as  a  powerful  encour- 
agement to  the  prevaiUng  Irish  feeUng  that  dishonest 
combining  is  the  best  way  of  getting  on  in  the  world.' 

He  thought  that  if  the  land  of  Ireland  passed  mainly 
into  the  hands  of  peasant  proprietors  the  Home  Rule 
movement  would  lose  its  most  powerful  impulse  — 
though  political  agitation  in  some  form  or  other  would 
no  doubt  continue  —  and  the  power  of  resistance  to 
Home  Rule  would  also  be  diminished.  The  drain  of 
money  from  Ireland  would  be  very  great,  through  in- 
creased absenteeism,  through  the  interest  of  the  money 


412  WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

being  paid  into  the  Imperial  Exchequer,  and  the  prob- 
able investment  of  a  large  proportion  of  the  purchase- 
money  in  non-Irish  securities.  At  the  same  time,  the 
waste  of  money  involved  in  the  exorbitant  prices  paid 
for  tenant  right  would  cease;  the  savings  of  the  poorer 
classes  would  go  more  generally  into  the  improvement 
of  land;  and  it  seemed  probable  that  more  industry 
and  perseverance  would  be  shown  in  cultivation,  though 
the  habit  of  cutting  down  trees  and  neglecting  drainage, 
and  the  example  of  the  long  leaseholders  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  who  were  among  the  worst  cultivators 
in  Ireland,  prevented  him  from  being  too  sanguine. 
He  felt  it  was  impossible  to  predict  what  the  ultimate 
consequences  would  be.  Political  prophecy  usually 
proved  wrong,  he  thought,  and  in  Ireland  especially 
institutions  worked  very  differently  from  what  they 
did  in  most  other  countries.  He  felt  keenly,  however, 
that  power  and  influence  were  more  and  more  taken 
away  from  the  propertied  and  educated  classes  and 
when  the  King  and  Queen  visited  Ireland  in  the  summer 
he  said  that  the  Irish  landowners  who  received  them 
were  like  the  Morituri  te  salutant. 

In  the  Tariff  controversy  —  opened  that  year  by  a 
speech  of  Mr.  Chamberlain's  on  his  return  from  South 
Africa  —  Leeky  took  no  part.  He  thought  that  on 
the  whole  Free  Trade  was  best  for  a  great  country  like 
England,  and  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  give  prefer- 
ential treatment  to  the  Colonies.  In  the  summer  of 
1903  he  wrote  in  some  notes  on  the  Empire: 

'  The  bond  of  sentiment  between  the  different  parts 
of  the  Empire  is  very  strong  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  an 
increasing  one,  and  the  pride  in  the  greatness  of  a 
United  Empire  is  a  powerful  influence,  but  the  estab- 
Ushment  of  direct  material  interests,  though  not 
impossible,   is  very   different.     There  are  signs  that 


THE   TARIFF   CONTROVERSY  413 

the  Colonies  are  not  unwilling  to  grant  trade  advan- 
tages (in  the  form  of  preferential  treatment)  to  the 
Mother-country,  but  it  is  extremely  difficult  for  Eng- 
land to  reciprocate  this.  The  Free  Trade  system  is 
the  very  basis  of  her  present  prosperity,  and  the  statis- 
tics of  her  commerce  show  that  commercially  foreign 
countries,  especially  the  United  States  and  France, 
contribute  far  more  to  her  trade  than  her  own  domin- 
ions. On  the  other  hand,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether 
the  Colonies  will  consent  to  contribute  anything 
really  substantial  to  the  enormous  expenditure  of 
the  defence  of  the  Empire.  What  they  have  as  yet 
done  in  this  directon,  though  showing  a  spirit  which 
is  very  admirable,  is  really  infinitesimal,  and  it  is  very 
doubtful  whether  democratic  and  mainly  working- 
class  communities,  absorbed  in  local  interests  and 
devoting  much  of  their  national  resources  to  class 
objects,  will  voluntarily  assume  a  great  burden  of 
additional  taxation  for  the  defence  of  the  Empire  at 
large,  for  the  carrying  out  of  distant  objects,  or  the 
enforcement  of  Imperial  claims  or  interests  in  which 
they  are  not  as  directly  concerned.  This  is  one  of  the 
great  problems  of  the  future,  and  I  do  not  venture  to 
pronounce  any  decided  opinion  upon  it.  On  the  whole, 
it  looks  as  if  the  Colonial  contributions"  would  be 
mainly  in  the  shape  of  trade  advantages,  leaving  the 
naval  defence  of  the  Empire  almost  wholly  to  Eng- 
land, but  relieving  her  wholly  of  their  own  military 
defence  and  contributing  something  by  voluntary 
and  isolated  action  to  her  military  assistance  when 
she  is  engaged  in  war.' 

At  the  same  time,  Lecky  thought  that  the  reaction 
against  the  abuses  of  the  old  fiscal  system  had  been 
carried  too  far,  and  that  the  question  was  now  looked 
upon  in  a  different  light  from  what  it  was  in  the  days 
of  Cobden.  Protection  in  one  form  or  another  per- 
vaded modern  democratic  legislation.     In  a  Free  Trade 


414  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

country  like  England  the  Protectionist  spirit  showed 
itself  in  the  increasing  tendency  to  regulate,  restrict, 
and  interfere  with,  industry  in  all  its  departments. 
'  Free  labour  and  Free  Trade  are  closely  connected. 
If  in  England  those  who  oppose  the  first  profess  to 
be  in  favour  of  the  second,  this  is  only  because  most 
sections  of  the  labouring  classes  believe  cheap  food 
to  be  altogether  to  their  advantage,  and  because  in 
the  great  division  of  industries  in  England  they  see 
no  present  prospect  of  obtaining  protection  for  their 
own.'^ 

He  had* within  the  last  years  renewed  the  acquaint- 
ance by  correspondence  of  a  Trinity  College  contem- 
porary. Sir  Henry  Wrixon,  who  had  sent  him  a  book  and 
to  whom  he  wrote: 

July  7,  1903.  — '  I  must  thank  you  very  sincerely 
for  your  kindness  in  sending  me  "Jacob  Shumite." 
I  have  already  been  reading  some  of  it  with  great 
interest,  and  am  going  to  take  it  next  week  into  the 
country,  where  I  shall  probably  spend  very  quietly 
the  rest  of  the  summer.  It  seems  to  me  quite  as  good 
as  the  admirable  "Pohtical  Tour"  which  gave  me  so 
much  pleasure  some  years  ago.  I  was  amused  at  the 
account  of  the  College  Debating  Society,  which  brought 
my  mind  vividly  back  to  the  long  gone  by  days  when 
we  used  to  interchange  and  discuss  our  somewhat 
crude  views  in  the  "Historical."  I  hope  you  are 
better  preserved  than  I  am.  An  attack  of  influenza 
two  years  ago  left  me  with  a  dilated  heart,  and  since 
then  I  have  been  obliged  to  lead  very  much  the  life 
of  an  invaUd  —  to  give  up  ParUament  and  pohtics. 
and  even  in  a  great  degree  writing,  for  all  energy  and 
robustness  seem  to  have  passed  away  from  me.'  ^ 

1  See  Democracy  and  Liberty,  ^  In  sending  this  letter.  Sir 

cabinet  edition,  vol.  i.  pp.  L57  Henry  Wrixon  (member  of  the 
-159,  257;  vol.  ii.  pp.  463-466.      Executive  Council  and  Legis- 


APPROACHING   END  415 

The  summer  of  1903  was  as  unfavourable  to  an 
invalid  as  the  spring  had  been,  and  Lecky,  to  his  great 
regret,  was  advised  not  to  go  to  Holland  but  to  stay 
in  some  bracmg  place  in  England.  He  and  his  wife 
went  to  Growborough,  and  afterwards  an  old  friend, 
Lady  Sligo,'  with  characteristic  kindness  and  gener- 
osity, lent  them  her  country  house,  Mount  Browne,  near 
Guildford,  where  they  spent  the  remainder  of  the  sum- 
mer. Relapses  had  by  degrees  become  more  frequent 
and  prolonged,  and  gave  great  anxiety.  Lecky  him- 
self was  much  discouraged,  though  always  patient  and 
full  of  solicitude  for  others.  When,  in  consequence 
of  Lord  Salisbury's  death,  he  found  himself  the  oldest 
elected  member  of  'The  Club'  (Johnson's  Club),  he 
felt,  as  Mr.  Venables  expressed  it,  that  'his  stick  was 
near  the  door.'  He  still  did  a  little  revising  of  his 
Essays,  he  read  again  old  books,  such  as  Walter  Scott's 
novels;  he  saw  some  friends;  he  continued  his  interest 
in  all  that  went  on  in  the  world,  but  life  with  its  sleep- 
less nights  and  weary  days  was  now  on  the  whole  a 
struggle.  The  trial  of  weakness  was  especially  great  to 
an  independent  nature  like  his,  and  one  to  whom  work 

lative    Assembly,    Melbourne)  I  may  add  that  he  was  always 

says:     'I     knew     Mr.     Lecky  very  kindly  in  his  manner  — 

slightly    at    Trinity    College,  especially,  I  think,  to  juniors. 

Dublin.     He  was  leaving  the  After  he  left  Trinity  my  per- 

year  that  I  entered.     He  was  sonal  knowledge  of  him  ceases, 

one  of  the  lights  of  the  His-  and  I  knew  him  only  in  litera- 

torical    Society,    admired    by  ture,  in  which  he  took  such  a 

me    from    afar.     I    remember  foremost  position.     But  when 

we  all  felt  the  great  command  I     was     attempting     a    little 

of  language  that  he  possessed  authorship    myself,    he   wrote 

and  the  new  light  in  which  he  giving  me  useful  information 

would    present    subjects.     He  as  to  publishing,  &c.' 
used    to    maintain    advanced  ^  Isabelle     Marchioness     of 

views    and    enlightened    ones.  Sligo  was  the  daughter  of  a 


416  WILLIAM   EDWAKD   HARTPOLE      LECKY 

was  the  first  condition  of  life.  In  October  he  stayed 
at  Brighton,  where  he  had  always  liked  the  good  air, 
but  it  did  not  prevent  weakness  increasing  from  an 
incurable  cause.  By  the  doctor's  advice  he  returned 
home,  and  a  few  days  later,  on  October  22,  the  end 
came  suddenly  in  his  library,  '  Give  us  timely  death,' 
he  wrote  in  his  '  Map  of  Life,'  '  is  one  of  the  best  prayers 
that  man  can  pray,'  and  that  was  now  fulfilled  for  him. 

The  innumerable  letters  of  sympathy  received  after 
Lecky's  death  from  far  and  wide,  from  young  and  old, 
from  men  and  women,  from  political  friends  and  politi- 
cal opponents,  were  unanimous  in  their  high  appre- 
ciation of  his  character  as  well  as  of  his  intellectual 
eminence,  and  this  was  expressed  in  the  first  place  in 
a  kind  message  from  the  King. 

'  Never  did  I  see  more  equable  goodness  in  any 
man,'  wrote  an  old  Trinity  College  friend,  Dr.  Mahaffy; 
'his  nature  soared  above  the  vulgar  passions  and  in- 
trigues of  the  world,  and  so  he  commanded  the  respect 
of  all  creeds  and  classes  —  a  great  loss  to  his  friends, 
he  is  still  a  greater  loss  to  his  country,  and  to  the  whole 
republic  of  letters,  which  he  not  only  adorned  but  puri- 
fied by  the  high  intellectual  and  moral  tone  of  his 
works.  .  .  .  And  if  it  was  indeed  an  inestimable 
privilege  to  know  and  to  love  him,  it  cannot  but  be 
a  consolation  to  think  upon  his  useful  and  splendid 
Ufe.' 

'  He  was,'  wrote  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  '  one  of 
the  best  men,  the  most  righteous  men,  that  I  have  ever 
known,  and  I  always  looked  up  to  him  with  affection- 
ate respect.  It  was  a  real  privilege  to  be  permitted 
to  a  share  in  his  friendships.  .  .  .  Thank  God  the  world 

remarkable  woman,  Mme.  de      in  1895,  a  very  kind  friend  of 
Peyronnet,  who  had  been  for      Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lecky. 
many  years,  up  to  her  death 


TRIBUTES  417 

is  better  for  such  pure  and  unselfish  hves,  and  if  we 
are  not  the  better  for  watcliing  them,  it  is  to  our 
sliame.' 

The  various  societies  and  institutions  to  which  Lecky 
belonged  were  warm  in  their  expressions  of  regret,  and 
many  a  touching  tribute  to  his  memory  came  from 
members  of  the  French  Institute,  of  which  Lecky  had 
become  a  full  member  in  1902.  In  forwarding  the 
formal  note  of  condolence,  M.  Picot,  the  Secretaire 
perpetuel,  said:  '  Le  grand  historien  que  perd  I'Angle- 
terre  etait  I'honneur  de  la  science  historique  et  I'lnsti- 
tut  de  France  etait  fier  de  le  compter  dans  ses  rangs.' 
Another  eminent  member  of  that  body,  M.  Boutmy, 
who  founded  the  Ecole  des  Sciences  Politiques,  wrote 
'Votre  mari  n'etait  pas  seulement  I'homme  eminent 
que  toute  1 'Europe  respectait  et  admirait,  il  etait  aussi 
(j'en  ai  fait  plusieurs  fois  I'epreuve)  I'homme  plein 
de  bonte,  serviable  a  ses  amis,  qu'on  ne  pouvait  pas 
connaitre  sans  I'aimer  —  j'ai  eu  la  joie  de  contribuer 
a  faire  de  lui  un  associe  etranger  de  notre  Academie 
et  il  n'y  a  pas  de  choix  dont  je  me  sois  plus  felicite.' 

Not  the  least  striking  testimony  came .  from  the 
Nationalist  members  of  the  Irish  Literary  Society. 
The  Society  was  a  non-political  body,  and  Lecky  had 
only  accepted  the  honorary  membership  because  it  pur- 
ported to  devote  itself  purely  to  the  furtherance  of  the 
knowledge  of  Irish  literature.  The  vote  of  regret  and 
sympathy  passed  at  its  opening  meeting  that  autumn 
was  therefore  dissociated  from  party  politics.  But  the 
meeting  was  largely  composed  of  strong  Nationalists, 
and  when,  wrote  Mr.  Stephen  Gwynn,  'Mr.  Barry 
O'Brien,  Vice-President  of  the  Society,  said  in  a  brief 
speech  that  Mr.  Lecky  was  the  greatest  historian  that 
had  been  born  in  Ireland,  and  that  his  work  was  not 
only  a  history  of  the  Irish  people  but  a  vindication, 
28 


418  WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 

the  meeting  did  not  so  much  applaud  as  express  a 
deep  and  grateful  assent.''* 

'  Speaking/  he  added,  '  as  I  permit  myself  to  speak, 
for  an  association  of  men  and  women  of  whom  the 
most  active  are  nearly  without  exception  opponents 
of  the  poUtical  views  held  by  Mr.  Lecky,  I  trust  you 
will  allow  me  to  say  this.  We  recognise  in  him  —  as 
we  recognise  in  Horace  Plunkett  —  a  man  who  has 
done  for  Ireland  work  of  infinite  value  which  none  of 
our  side  has  shown  ability  to  do.  We  recognise  also 
that  the  authority  derived  from  his  achievement 
adds  incalculably  to  the  personal  weight  which  he 
brought  to  the  opposing  side  in  poUtics.  And  yet 
our  gratitude  and  admiration  for  the  work  done  is 
none  the  less  because  we  see  that  the  influence  derived 
from  it  is  used  against  our  own  cause.  We  could  not 
have  those  feelings  were  it  not  that  every  man  of  us 
singly,  and  the  whole  of  us  as  a  body,  know  and  beheve 
intimately  that  the  same  perfect  sincerity  and  candour 
which  were  displayed  in  the  History  governed  Mr. 
Lecky  in  drawing  from  the  facts  of  history  a  conclu- 
sion diametrically  opposite  to  that  which  we  draw 
ourselves.' 

In  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral  —  the  national  cathedral 
of  Ireland  —  the  last  honours  were  appropriately  ren- 
dered to  his  mortal  remains.  One  of  his  most  valued 
friends,  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  gave  the  funeral 
address.  'There  never  was  a  more  representative 
assembly  in  the  Cathedral  than  that  which  gathered 
there  this  morning,'  wrote  a  friend.  'We  all  realised 
that  our  greatest  Irishman  was  gone.  .  .  .  The  Dean's 
address  was  full  of  genuine  appreciation  and  admira- 
tion, and  one  felt  that  his  feelings  were  shared  by  that 
vast  congregation.' 

Three  years  after,  on  May  10,  1906,  Lecky's  bronze 


UNVEILING    OF   THE    STATUE  419 

statue,  erected  by  his  friends  and  appreciators,  and 
executed  by  Mr.  Goscombe  John,  R.A.,  was  unveiled 
by  Lord  Rathmore.  Nothing  could  have  been  more 
gratifying  to  Lecky  than  that  his  old  College  friend  — 
whose  eloquence  he  had  always  so  greatly  admii^d, 
should  have  consented  to  speak  on  his  memory  — and 
Lord  Rathmore  paid  a  most  sympathetic,  touching, 
and  eloquent  tribute.  In  the  course  of  his  oration, 
giving  a  survey  of  Lecky's  character  and  career,  he 
said : 

'The  general  effect  which  Mr.  Lecky  produced  on 
those  who  met  him  in  pubhc  has  been  finely  summed 
up  by  an  able  and  impartial  critic  of  his  work  and 
career,  who  described  him  as  "  one  who  held  up  before 
him  a  high  ideal  both  in  what  touches  the  intellect 
and  what  touches  the  conscience,  and  who  never 
abandoned  it  or  allowed  it  to  be  obscured  by  self- 
seeking."  That  is  a  true  description  of  the  man,  and 
no  amount  of  intimacy  could  find  out  in  him  anything 
to  detract  from  its  high  eulogy,  for  Lecky  was  abso- 
lutely free  from  insincerity  or  make-believe,  from 
those  affectations  which  with  some  men  —  great  as  well 
as  small  —  spring  from  personal  vanity;  but  behind 
that  character  known  to  the  public  there  lay  other 
quahties  which  gave  to  his  companionship  a  peculiar 
charm  and  fascination.  His  wide  and  tolerant  view 
of  men  and  of  affairs  was  ever  guarded  by  a  humor- 
ous, but  at  the  same  time  searching  insight  into  human 
motives.  Patient  and  gentle  with  mere  ignorance 
and  stupidity  in  others,  he  was  easily  moved  to  indig- 
nation by  pretension  or  injustice,  and  above  all,  the 
sense  of  oppression  —  came  it  from  what  quarter  it 
might  —  kindled  the  fire  within  him,  and  the  hot 
words  of  eloquent  scorn  poured  forth  like  lava.  Unos- 
tentatious almost  to  shyness,  he  was  never  anxious  to 
display  his  knowledge,  but  he  was  always  ready  to 
lend  his  vast  stores  of  learning  for  the  information  and 


420  WILLIAM    EDWARD    HARTPOLE   LECKY 

amusement  of  his  friends  —  he  was,  in  fact,  through 
all  his  Ufe,  a  warm-hearted,  high-minded,  and  kindly- 
man  and  a  great  gentleman. 

'  I  am  sure,'  said  Lord  Rathmore  in  his  peroration, 
'that  amidst  the  many  great  distinctions  which  Lecky 
won  in  the  course  of  his  briUiant  career,  none  could 
have  been  more  grateful,  could  he  have  foreseen  it, 
to  his  mind  and  to  his  heart  than  that  his  services 
should  find  in  this  place  a  lasting  memorial.  Many 
here  present  must  have  Hstened  to  his  eloquent  speech 
at  our  Tercentenary  banquet,  and  will  remember  the 
touching  passage  in  which  he  confessed  how  keen  was 
the  pleasure  to  "an  isolated  author,"  as  he  described 
himself,  to  think  that  his  own  University  should  follow 
his  career  with  a  maternal  interest  and  might  in  some 
future  day,  when  taking  stock  of  her  productions,  not 
wholly  forget  his  name  and  his  works.  That  loving, 
loyal  hope  will  be  fulfilled  to-day.  Yonder  stand  the 
statues  of  Oliver  Goldsmith  and  Edmund  Burke,  the 
warders  of  our  gate,  and  close  at  hand,  in  the  throng- 
ing thoroughfare,  the  effigy  of  Henry  Grattan,  illu- 
mined through  the  genius  of  Foley  with  all  the  fire  of 
patriotism.  It  is  well  that  here  within  these  academic 
courts  should  rest  the  monument  of  another,  not  less 
illustrious  in  his  time  than  they  were  in  theirs,  the 
patient,  the  indefatigable  student,  the  philosopher, 
the  orator,  the  historian,  who  rewrote  the  annals  and 
vindicated  the  character  of  his  countrymen,  that  future 
generations  of  students  within  these  walls,  looking  upon 
this  memorial,  should  be  stirred  to  follow  his  example 
and  gather  hope  and  courage  from  his  career  to  win 
success  and  renown  for  themselves,  to  render  faithful 
service  to  their  country  as  he  did,  and  add  fresh  hon- 
ours to  the  name  and  fame  of  old  Trinity.' 


INDEX 


(Figures  in  italics  signify  notes) 


Abercorn,  James,  2nd  Duke  of, 
288 

Acton,  John,  1st  Baron,  93,  187, 
248,  330 

Adams,  C.  F.,  98 

Addison,  Joseph,  130 

Addison,  Judge,  11,  28,  31 

Aitken,  Miss,  see  Carlyle,  Mrs. 
Alexander 

Albani,  Mme.,  265 

Aldborough,  John  Stratford,  1st 
Earl  of,  £ 

Alexander,  Dr.  (Abp.  of  Ar- 
magh), cited  on  the  'Leaders,' 
29;  on  the  'Rationalism,'  46 

Alexander,  Prince  (afterwards  of 
Orange),  95,  136 

Alexandra  College,  Dublin,  371 

Amberley,  Lord  and  Lady,  104 

Ainiel,  liis  Journal  Intime,  204 

Angelina,  Lecky,  36 

An  Old  Song,  Lecky,  206,  268 

Antonelli,  Cardinal,  99 

Arbuthnot,  Rev.  Robert  Keith, 
11,  23,  63 

Ardagh,  Sir  John,  11 

Argyll,  George,  8th  Duke  of,  218, 
259 

Armstrong,  Edmund,  143 

Arnold,  Matthew,  238 

Arnold-Forster,  H.  O.,  233 

Ashbourne,  Lord,  11,  15,  266, 
357,  390 

Athenajum  Club,  Mr.  Lecky  be- 
comes a  member,  58,  405 

Aumale,  Due  d',  295,  310;    his 


Histoire  des  Princes  de  Condi, 
295 

Baden-Powell,  Sir  George,  237 

Bagwell,  Richard,  197  and  note 

Balfour,  Rt.  Hon.  Arthur  J.,  and 
Irish  politics,  288,  336,  337, 
342,  344,  361 

Balfour,  Rt.  Hon.  Gerald,  362, 
385 

Balfour,  Lady  Betty,  385 

Ball,  Dr.  Charles,  389 

Bampton  Lectures  on  the  Per- 
manence of  Christianity,  116 

Bancroft,  Frederic,  185;  his  For- 
mation of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  186 

Banks,  Sir  John,  313 

Barras,  Memoirs  of,-  S94- 

Bayard,  T.  E.,  on  receiving 
Lecky's  portrait,  308;  cited 
on  the  'Democracy,'  321;  de- 
parture of,  331 

Beaconsfield,  Earl  of,  306;  see 
also  Disraeli 

Beaufort,  Mme.  de,  306 

Bemis,  George,  307 

Bernard,  Dr.  (Dean  of  St.  Pat- 
rick's), 371,  403,  406,  416-7, 
418 

Bismarck,  Prince,  83,  84,  86,  87; 
and  universal  suffrage,  203 

Blake,  Mrs.,  266 

Blennerhassett,  Lady,  her  Mme. 
de  Stael,  262 

Boehm,   Sir  Edgar  Joseph,   and 


421 


422 


WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 


Carlyle    Memorial,    174,    178; 

his  bust  of  Lecky,  252;  death 

of,  252 
Boer  war,  379,  380-1,  397 
Bonghi,  M.,  239 
Booth,    Arthur,    11    and    note; 

friendship  of,  with  Lecky,  12, 

13,  23;    letters  to,   24  et  sqq, 

254 
Bossuet,  256 

Boutmy,  M.,  on  Lecky,  417 
Bowen,  Charles,  3 
Bowen,     Charles     Hartpole,     3; 

letters    to,    65-6    et    sqq;     his 

translation  of  Faust,  132  and 

note;    death  of,  156 
Bowyer,  Sir  G.,  161 
Boyle,      Dean      (of     Salisbury), 

cited  259,  376 
Brassey,     Thomas,     1st     Baron, 

239 
Braun,  Baronne  de,  307 
Briglit,  Jacob,  214 
Bright,   Rt.  Hon.  John,  59,  61, 

214,  219 
British  Academy,  foundation  of, 

400 
Brodrick,  Hon.  George,  299 
Brooke,  Henry,  157-8 
Brooke,    Rev.    Richard,    8,    154, 

157-8,  183,  184 
Brookfield,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  104 
Browning,  Robert,  104,  174 
Bryce,  Rt.  Hon.  James,  his  His- 
tory of  the  American  Common- 
wealth, 247,  248,  249 
Buchanan,    Robert,   his  City  of 

Dream,  239 
Buckle,  Henry  Thomas,  28,  32, 

34,   45,   69,   71,   90,   121,    122, 

242,  352 
Bulgarian    atrocities,    128,    129, 

131 
Bunbury,  Lady,  243 
Bunsen,  Mme.  de,  97 
Burke,    Sir    Bernard,    125,    127, 

137,  194,  197 
Burke,  Edmund,  186,  187,  188,    | 


221,  420;    centenary  of,  348; 

Lecky's  speech  on,  348-56 
Burke,  Thomas  Henry,   murder 

of,  192 
Butler,  Dr.  H.  M.,  253,  265 
Butler,  Sir  Thomas,  288 
Butt,  Isaac,  88 

Cadogan,  George,  5th  Earl,  345, 
348,  371 

Cairnes,  Professor  J.  E.,  111-2 

Cambridge  Modern  History,  330 

Canning,  Hon.  Albert,  his  Lit- 
erary Influence  in  British  His- 
tory, 241-2 

Canning,  George,  on  Burke,  356 

Cardwell,     Lady,     6    and    note 

Carlyle,  Alexander,  164 

Carlyle,  Mrs.  Alexander,  mar- 
riage of,  164;  independence 
of,  174 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  relations  of, 
with  Lecky,  63,  67,  68,  85, 
87,  93,  106,  146;  Lecky  on, 
107-09;  his  view  of  history, 
122;  in  faihng  health,  130, 
151,  170,  171,  172;  death, 
172-3;  funeral,  173-4;  re- 
ferred to,  133,  137,  139,  147, 
158,  164,  263,  275,  347,  367; 
his  Reminiscences,  174  et  sqq, 
208 

Carnarvon,  Henry,  4th  Earl  of, 
213 

Carnwath,  8th  Earl  of,  10,  29, 
62 

Carnwath,  9th  Earl  of,  113 

Carnwath,  Lady,  36,  102-3,  113, 
405;    see  also  Wilmot,  Miss 

Carson,  Right  Hon.  Sir  Edward, 

325 
Catechism  of  the  History  of  Ire- 
land, O'Neill  Daunt,  182 
Catherine,  Russian  Grand  Duch- 
ess, 81 
Cavendish,  Lord  Frederick,  mur- 
der of,  192 
Cetewayo,  199 


INDEX 


423 


Chamberlain,  Rt.  Hon.  Joseph, 

219,  245,  288,  374,  381,  385, 

412 
Charlemont,  James,  1st  Earl  of, 

96 
Chetwode,    Miss   Alice   Wiimot, 

8,  112 
Chetwode,  Knightley,  12,  16,  19, 

20,  22,  63,  83,  100,  101 
Chetwode,  Wiimot,  71 
Childers,  Rt.  Hon.  Hugh  C.  E., 

202,  392 
Clancy,  J.  J.,  338 
Clarendon,  George,  4th  Earl  of, 

74 
Clark,  Sir  Andrew,  death  of,  292 
Cleveland,  President,  330 
Cobbe,  Miss  F.  P.,  104 
Code  Napoleon,  115 
Colenso,  Bishop,  199 
CoUey,  Sir  George,  199 
Commonplace      Books,       Lecky, 

cited,    9,  15,   20,   67,   72,    107, 

113,  118,  150,  227,    236,   293, 

331,  391 
Comte,  comment  on,  63,  63-4,  69 
Condorcet,  69 
Copyright  Act,   British,   evasion 

of  in  Canada,  300-2 
Copyright   Bill,    American,    263, 

264,  301 
Countess  Kathleen,  Yeats,  375-6 
Crampton,  Sir  John,  123 
Crampton,  Miss  Selina,  123 
Cullen,  Cardinal,  96 

Damer,  Capt.,  80 

Darwin,  Charles  Robert,  his 
Descent  of  Man  published,  90, 
127 

Daunt,  O'Neill,  reviews  Lecky's 
'Leaders,'  29;  political  type 
of,  143-4  and  note;  corre- 
spondence with,  159,  161,  166, 
168,  178,  182,  192,  214;  death, 
409 

Declining  Sense  of  the  Miracu- 
lous,  The,  Lecky,  36,  38 


Dedem,  Elisabeth  Baroness  van, 
81,     85    sqq,    89-94;    see  also 
Lecky,  Mrs. 
Dedem,  General  Baron  van,  89 
Dedem,     Baron    W.    van,     182; 

death  of,  303-4 
Democracy  and  Liberty,  Lecky, 
cited,  28,  61,  78,  181,  202,  244, 
263,  283,  296,  303,  306,  3/7, 
343,  344.  34.6,  369,  371-2,  414; 
commencement  of,  269;  ap- 
pearance of,  319;  comment  on, 
320  et  sqq 
Derby,    Countess   of,    103,    289, 

294-5 
Derby,    15th  Earl  of,   103,    149, 
174,    200,    247,    270-1,    289, 
294-5 
Descent  of  Man,  Darwin,  90 
Devonshire,  8th  Duke  of,  218, 288 
Dicey,  Professor  A.  V.,  248 
Dictionary     of    National     Biog- 
raphy, 4 
Disraeli,  Benjamin,  59,  127 
Dixon,  W.  Hepworth,  96 
Dollinger,   Dr.   I.   von,   cited  on 
differences  in  Catholicism,  256 
'Doppers,'  201 

Dowd^n,    Professor  E.,    11;    his 
Ldfe     of     Shelley,     227;       on 
Lecky's  letter  to  Dublin  Con- 
vention, 272;    on  Burke,  357 
Doyle,  Henry,  death  of,  281 
Dublin,  Archbishop  of  (Dr.  Pea- 
cocks), 371 
Dudley,  Thomas,  357 
Dufferin   and   Ava,   Marquis  of, 
265,   276,   317,  382;    cited  on 
the  'Democracy,'  320-1;    and 
Irish  politics,  342,  343;   death, 
401 
Dufferin  and  Ava,   Marchioness 

of,  276 
Dunlop,  Mrs.,  242-3 
Dunne,  General,  339 
Dupanloup,  Bishop,  40,  86 
Duruford,    Bishop    (of   Chiches- 
ter), 297 


424 


WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 


Dvordk,  Anton,  265 

Earle,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  104 
Early  Recollections  of  Mr.  Lecky, 

Booth,  cited,  10,  14,  16  et  sqq. 
Edinburgh   Rcviciv :  'The   Social 

Revolution  in  Ireland,'  408 
Edward  VII.,  King,  292,  404 
Elliot,  Hon.  Arthur,  273,  315 
Elliot,  Sir  Frederick  and  Lady, 

104 
Elliot.  Miss,  113 
Emly,  Lord,  171 
English  in  Ireland,  The,  Froude, 

110,  111,  112,  141 
Empire,  The,  Lecky,  292 
English    Thought    in    the    Eight- 
eenth Century,  Leslie  Stephen, 

133 
Erckmann-Chatrian,       Waterloo, 

279 
Erlach,  General  von,  204 

Falkiner,  C.  Litton,  his  Studies 
in  Irish  History,  399  and  note 

Fashoda,  370  and  note 

Fawcett,  Henry,  and  Irish  Uni- 
versity education,  109,  110 

Felix,  Pere,  38 

Finlay,  Sir  Robert,  233,  234 

Fitzgerald,  Lord  Edward,  243 

Fitzgibbon,  Lord  Justice,  11, 
357,  371,  390 

Fitzpatrick,  Sir  Dennis,  11, 

Fitzwilliam,  Lord,  222 

Flood,  Henry,  96,  408 

Flower,  Sir  William,  265 

Fortnightly  Club,  the,  127 

Foster,  John,  243 

Franco-German  war,  the,  83  et 
sqq 

Franqueville,  Comte  de,  293 

Frazer,  James  George,  304 

Frederick,  German  Emperor, 
231 

Freeman,  Edward  Augustus, 
death  of,  270 

Frere',  Sir  Bartle,  199 


Froude,  James  Anthony,  44,  47, 
93,  125,  126,  134,  135,  137, 140, 
141,  149,  173;  The  English  in 
Ireland,  110  et  sqq;  death,  299 

Gaeta,  fall  of,  26-7 
Gavan  Duffy,  Sir  Charles,  110-1, 
117,    213,    229;     writings    of, 
141,  196,  274-5;    death,  409 
Gavazzi,  Signor,  100 
Geikie,  Professor  A.  J.,  265 
Gibbon,   Edward,  71,   203,   204, 

323 
Gibson,  Edward,  see  Ashbourne 
Gill,  T.  P.,  386 
Gladstone,  Sir  Thomas,  180 
Gladstone,  William  Ewart,  Irish 
policy  of,  73,  74,  79-80,   171, 
179,    180,   210,   212-3,   217-8, 
223-4,   233-4,   273,   284,   285, 

286,  339;  controversy  of, 
with  Lecky,  153-5;  and  M. 
Reville,  211;  repeal  of  the 
income  tax,  229-30;  Parnell 
divorce  case,  264;  resignation, 
295,  305;  Lecky's  estimate  of, 
372;  referred  to,  5,  59,  60,  63, 
109,  127,  128,  129,  130,  132, 
159,   175,   176,  216,   226,  274, 

287,  369-70 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  350,  355,  420 
Gonzenbach,    M.    de,    203,    204, 

205 
Gordon,  General  C.  G.,  205 
Goschen,  Viscount,  288 
Gould,  Sir  F.  Carruthers,  316 
Gowan,  Senator  Sir  James,  148, 

248,  260,  264,  292,  295,  297, 

300,  305,  345,  369,  396 
Grand,  M.  Paul,  394 
Grant-Duff,  Sir  Mountstuart,  48, 

293,  318,  372 
Grattan,  Henry,  10,  30,  32,  96, 

193,  221,  222,  223-4,  392,  408, 

420 
Gray,  Thomas,  263 
Gray,  Dr.  F.,  T.C.D.,  388 
Green,  Mrs.  J.,  Letter  to,  199 


INDEX 


425 


Green,  John  Richard,  death  of, 
199 

Greg,  W.  R.,  104,  199 

Gregg,  Dr.  John  (Bishop  of 
Cork),  16,  19,  41,  195 

Gregg,  Dr.  Robert  (Abp.  of 
Armagh),  312 

Gregory,  Lady,  and  Mr.  Greg- 
ory's Letter  Box,  367 ;  375 

Gregory,  Sir  William,  171 ;  death 
of,  281 

Grej',  Charles,  2nd  Earl,  251 

Grey,  Albert,  afterwards  4th 
Earl  Grey,  234 

GriUion's  Club,  239 

Guyot,  M.,  his  Tyranny  of  So- 
cialism, 299 

Gwynn,  Dr.  John,  313 

Haggard,  H.  Rider,  406 

Halle,  Sir  Charles  and  Lady, 
296 

Halliday  Pamphlets,  the,  156 

Hannen,  Sir  James,  239,  240 

Harcourt,  Sir  W.  G.  V.,  con- 
troversy with  Lecky,  221,  226 

Harris,  Admiral,  95 

Hartington,  Spencer,  Marquess 
of,  117;  and  National  Liberal 
Federation,  233,  234 

Hartpole,  George,  3 

Hartpole,  Maria,  2,  3,  59 

Hartpole,  Robert,  2 

Hayward,  Abraham,  his  article 
on  Croker,  127 

Healy,  Father,  123,  193,  197 

Healy,  Timothy,  338 

Hecker,  Father,  77-8 

Hegel,  69 

Henrj',  Rev.  Matthew,  cited,  4 

Herder,  69 

Hereford,  Lord  James  of,  289 

Hirst,  W.  A.,  and  the  '  Morals,' 
70-1 

Historical  and  Political  Essays, 
Lecky,  S62,  263,  280,  288, 
290,  293,  296,  348,  376,  384, 


Historical  Society  (T.  0.  D.),  15- 
17,  18,  20,  36,  124,  127,  200, 
260,  329,  357,  390 

History  of  England  in  the  Eight- 
eenth Century,  Lecky,  appear- 
ance of  first  two  volumes,  137; 
comment  on,  141-4;  second 
two  volumes,  1 85 ;  comment  on, 
186  et  sqq;  third  two  volumes, 
227;  comment  on,  228-9;  con- 
clusion of  the  History,  251; 
and  appearance  of  last  vol- 
umes, 258;  comment  on,  258- 
60;  new  editions  of,  269,  281; 
reference  to,  89,  115,  118,  119, 
122,  126,  127,  128,  129,  132, 
133,  145,  147,  148,  149,  168, 
175,  178,  184,  192,  238,  258 

History  of  European  Morals, 
Lecky,  commencement  of,  55; 
appearance  of,  67;  comment 
on,  67-8;  reference  to,  68-9, 
70,  71,  82,  91,  115,  125,  128, 
129,  201,  378 

History  of  Ireland,  Leckv,  157, 
238,  251 

History  of  the  Rise  and  Influence 
of  the  Spirit  of  Rationalism  in 
Europe,  Lecky,  commence- 
ment of,  35;  appearance  of, 
44;  comment  on,  44  et  sqq; 
reference  to,  22,  25,  36-7,  43, 
68-9,  72,  82,  97,  121,  128,  201 

Holland,  Sir  Henry,  64,  93,  105 

Houghton,  Richard,  1st  Baron, 
93 

Hugo,  Victor,  26 

Huxley,  Professor  T.  H.,  105, 
106,  120-1 

Hyacinthe,  P6re,  100,  101 

Imelmann,  Dr.  I.,  293 
Ingram,  Rev.  J.  Kells,  14 
Institute,  French,  the  Centenary 

of,   310-1 
Ireland  in  the  Light  of  History, 

Lecky,  262 
Ireland,      Financial      Relations 


426 


WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 


with   England,    337   sqq,   357, 

358,  365,  366,  383-4 
Irish    Church    DisestabHshment, 

73-5 
Irish    Land   Bills,   1870,    78-80; 

1881,  178,  179,  180,  181,  198; 

1896,   317,   318,   324-7;   1903, 

411,  412 
Irish    Local    Government    Bill, 

1898,  362,  363,  364 
Irish  Sunday  Closing  Bill,  344 
Irish  University  Education,  109, 

151-2,  332  et  sqq 
Irish  Vice-Royalty,  230,  231 

Jameson  Raid,  the,  329 
Jebb,  Sir  Richard,  300 
Jephson,  Mrs.,  123 
Jerome,  King  of  Westphalia,  83 
John,  R.  A.  Goscombe,  his  statue 

of  Lecky,  419 
Jolowicz,  Dr.,  73,  121 
Jones,  Dr.  Bence,  110 
Jowett,  Dr.  Benjamin,  147 

Kelvin,    William,    1st    Baron, 

270,  303,  304 
Killanin,  Lord  (Martin  Morris), 

election  of,  387 
Kinglake,     Alexander    William, 

93,  105;    on  Lecky's  'History 

of  England,'  228;   his  Crimean 

War,  239 
Knight,  Professor,  253 
Knollys,  Rev.  Erskine,  9,  10 
Knox,   Edmund  Francis  Vesey, 

341 
Kruger,   President,   in   England, 

200;    Lecky  on,  201,  377 

Lacaita,  Sir  James,  98 

La  Marmora,  General,  98 

Lamartine,  26 

Lansdowne,  Henrj',  5th  Mar- 
quess of,  239 

Laveleye,  M.  de,  his  Gouverne- 
ment  dans  la  Democratic,  279 

Lawless,  Hon.  Emily,  her  Essex 


in  Ireland,  255 

Layard,  Sir  Austen  Henry,  130, 
303 

Lea,  Henry  Charles,  correspond- 
ence with,  52,  68,  118,  185, 
235  et  sqq,  256  ct  sqq,  264,  265, 
285,  297-8,  308,  322 

Leaders  of  Public  Opinion,  Lecky, 
appearance  of,  29-30;  com- 
ment on,  30,  35,  144;  revisions 
of,  88,  89,  95,  384,  398;  trans- 
lated into  German,  97;  re- 
vised edition  appears,  408; 
comment  on,  409;  reference 
to,  24,  220,  224-5,  252,  273, 
323 

Lecky,  Capt.  Alexander,  2 

Lecky,  George  Eardley,  6,  103; 
death,  113 

Lecky,  John,  3,  7 

Lecky,  John  Hartpole,  1,  5,  0; 
death,  8 

Lecky,  Mrs.,  reference  to,  98,  99, 
106,  115,  121,  122,  125,  131, 
134,  135,  136,  148,  151,  153, 
163,  165,  173,  189,  190,  191, 
197,  198,  199,  200,  226,  228, 
232,  234,  235,  239,  240,  241, 
242,  247,  258,  265,  266,  275, 
279,  291,  296,  297,  299,  304, 
306,  308,  347,  369,  371,  385, 
397,  401,  410,  415-8 

Lecky,  William  Edward  Hart- 
pole,  ancestry  of,  1-5;  birth 
of,  6;  school  days,  7,  8,  9;  at 
Quedgeley,  9-10;  at  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  11  et  sqq; 
connexon  of,  with  Irish  poli- 
tics, 8,  14,  19,  65-6,  73  et  sqq, 
78-80,  88-9,  109,  117,  151-2, 
159  et  sqq,  165-70,  178-80, 
181,  192-3,  202,  209-10,  212 
et  sqq,  271  et  sqq,  317,  325-7, 
332  et  sqq,  337  et  sqq,  344,  359, 
360,  361-2,  362-3,  364,  366, 
372-3,  383-5,  393-4,  399-400, 
411-2;  theological  and  liter- 
ary studies  of,  13-14,  23-4,  31, 


INDEX 


427 


37,  38;  speeches  at  the  His- 
torical Society,  15-17;  early 
poems  of,  17-18;  love  of 
travel,  19-20,  21,  24,  32;  on 
choice  of  a  profession,  34-35; 
authors  and  political  economy, 
41 ;  lecture  on  Early  Christian 
Art,  43;  his  dislike  of  noise, 
54,  118;  on  literary  workman- 
ship, 56-7;  in  Albemarle 
Street,  58;  Lecture  on  'Influ- 
ence of  Imagination  on  His- 
torj'','  64;  on  the  historical 
method,  68-70;  overwork,  71- 
2;  various  translations  of  his 
works,  73;  on  papal  infalli- 
bility, 78;  relations  of,  with 
Queen  Sophia  of  Holland,  82- 
4,  89,  95,  103,  134-6;  meets 
his  future  wife,  81 ;  on  the 
Franco-German  war,  84,  85-7, 
90,  91 ;  descriptions  of  Ireland, 
87-8,  125-6,  240,  241,  242, 
318,  385-6;  his  marriage,  89, 
94—5;  society  and  solitude,  92; 
at  Onslow  Gardens,  103-4; 
friends  and  acquaintances, 
104-6;  relations  of,  with  Car- 
lyle,  .106,  107-8,  130,  137,  164, 
171,  172,  173-7,  367;  reviews 
'Froude's  English  in  Ireland,' 
110-2;  death  of  his  step- 
brother, 113;  on  parliament- 
ary life,  115,  116,  117;  on  a 
Home  Rule  debate,  117;  Irish 
friends,  123,  124;  working  at 
MSS.  in  the  British  Museum, 
119,  235;  in  the  Record  Office, 
119,  156,  162,  192;  in  Dublin 
Castle  Four  Courts,  124-8, 
137,  153,  156,  193;  in  the 
Paris  Archives,  131,  207,  208, 
209,  233;  on  Turkish  affairs, 
132,  133;  the  'Irish  Chapters,' 
134,  137,  139,  140,  178;  eye 
trouble,  145,  150,  204,  207-8; 
on  changes  in  Oxford,  147; 
on  Dutch  society,   153;    hon- 


orary degree  of  Dublin  Uni- 
versity, 153;  relations  of,' 
with  Mr.  Gladstone,  153-5, 
229-30,  369,  372;  on  Burke, 
188,  348-56;  LL.D.  of  St.  An- 
drews, 205-6 ;  relations  of,  with 
M.  R^ville,  211;  anti-Home 
Rule  speeches,  219,  234,  245-7; 
articles  on  Home  Rule,  220, 
272-3,  284;  portrait  by  Wells, 
239;  D.C.L.  Oxford,  239-40; 
on  Catholicism,  256-7;  divi- 
sion of  Irish  portion  of  the 
'History'  from  the  English, 
261-2;  on  literary  copyright, 
263-4,  300-2;  on  the  Parnell 
divorce  case,  264;  Honorary 
Degree  at  Cambridge,  265; 
the  Regius  Professorship,  Ox- 
ford, 270;  speech  at  Trinity 
College  Tercentenary,  277-8; 
President  of  the  Cheltonian 
Society,  289;  on  Dutch  na- 
tional survivals,  291;  Corre- 
spondent of  French  Institute, 
293;  member  of,  1902,  417; 
Memoir  of  Lord  Derby,  294-5 ; 
LL.D.  Gla.sgow,  303,  304; 
stands  for  Dublin  University, 
308-10;  seat  contested,  311-4; 
first  speech  in  Parliament,  316; 
President  of  the  Social  and 
Political  Educational  League, 
323  ;  made  a  Privy  Council- 
lor, 346;  on  England's  atti- 
tude towards  Germany,  367-8 ; 
on  American  foreign  policy, 
368;  on  women's  education, 
371;  on  Old  Age  Pension 
scheme,  374,  375;  the  Irish 
National  Theatre,  375,  376; 
the  Boer  war,  379,  3S0-2,  397; 
re-elected  for  Dublin  Univer- 
sity, 388-9;  article  on  Queen 
Victoria,  392;  failing  health, 
394,  395,  401-2,  414;  at  Har- 
rogate, 397;  wishes  to  resign 
his  seat,  402  et  sqq;    receives 


428 


WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 


the  Order  of  Merit,  404,  405; 
definite  resignation,  406-7;  on 
Arbitration,  409-10;  on  Tariff 
controversy,  412-4;  death, 
416;  public  regret  for,  416  et 
sqq;  funeral  ceremony,  418; 
statue  of,  419;  works  of,  see 
under  separate  headings 

Lee,  Miss  A.  L.,  her  Life  of  I^ord 
Stratford  de  Redcliffe,  332 

Leroy  Beaulieu,  M.,  his  Israel 
Among  the  Nations,  290 

Lever,  Charles,  52,  53,  94 

Lewes,  George  Henry,  6J^ 

Lewis,  Sir  G.  Cornewall,  his 
Essay  on  Irish  Disturbances, 
209 

Liddon,  Dr.,  240 

Lister,  Joseph,  1st  Baron,  153 

Literary  Society,  the,  Lecky 
becomes  a  member,  120 

Littre,  M.,  63,  64 

Locker-Lampson,  Frederick,  on 
liccky's  poetry,  267 

Londonderry,  Charles,  6th  Mar- 
quess of,  231 

Long,  Dr.,  case  of,  396 

Longmans,  Messrs.,  42,  96,  225, 
252 

Longman,  Thomas,  44,  40,  47, 
191 

Lowe,  Dr.,  141 

Lowe,  Robert  (Viscount  Sher- 
brooke),  00,   149 

Lubbock,  Sir  John  (afterwaids 
Lord  Avebury),  318 

Lyall,  Sir  Alfred,  cited  on  Lecky's 
History  of  Ejigland,  188-9;  on 
Lecky's  Poems,  268;  his  Life 
of  the  Marquis  of  Dufferin  and 
Ava,  320,  401;  reference  to, 
265,  276 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  geological 
discoveries,  13,  49,  104;  and 
Darwin,  127;  and  British 
Copyright  Act,  301 

Macaulay,  Lord,   127,  130,  311 


Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  349 
Madan,  Martin,  quoted,  57 
Mahaffy,    Professor   J.    P.,    124, 

195,  197,  357,  416 
Maine,   Sir  Henry,    122;    death, 

238 
Maitland,  Sir  Frederick,  7 
Mallet,    Sir    Lewis    and     Lady, 

105 
Manning,  Cardinal  H.  E.,  255-6 
Martineau,  Dr.,  239,  240 
Map  of  Life,  Lecky,  commence- 
ment of,   331;    conclusion  of, 
377;  appearance  of,  and  com- 
ment on,  378-9;  reference  to, 
113,  347,  416 
Marlborough,  John,  6th  Duke  of, 

152 
Massereene,  11th  Viscount,  243 
Max  Miiller,  174 
Mav,    Sir   Thomas   Erskine,    79, 

147,  151,  179,  218 
Mazzini,  101 

Mernoires  du  General  Marbot,  269 
Metschnikoff,  Professor,  265 
Miles,  Rev.  Canon,  233  and  note 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  64,  70 
Milman,  Dean,  cited  on  Lecky's 
'Rationalism,'  45,  47,  48;  re- 
ferred to,   49,   58-9;    Lecky's 
article  on,  384 
Minghetti,  M.,  99,  100 
Minto,  Countess,  104  and  note 
Minto,  3rd  Earl  of,  104 
Molinari,  M.,  cited  on  Irish  rents, 

166 
Monck,  Lady,  123 
Monck,    Charles,    4th    Viscount 

and  1st  Baron,  123,  171 
Moore,  Dr.,  239 
Moore,  Thomas,  quoted,  277 
Moral  Aspects  of  the  South  Afri- 
can War,  Lecky,  380 
Mori,  M.,  201-2 

Morley,  Rt.  Hon.  John,  221,  344 
Morris   and   Killanin,    Lord,    76, 
197,  215,  220,  312,  387;  death, 
388 


INDEX 


429 


Motley,  John  IjOthrop,  135 
Mundella,     Rt.     Hon.     Anthony 

John,  293 
Munz,  Dr.,  397 

Newman,    Cardinal   J.    H.,    250, 

257 
Newton,  Sir  Cliarles,  105 
Northcote,    Stafford   Henry,    1st 

Earl   of,    his    Thirty    Years   of 

Financial  Policy,  127 
Norton,  Eliot,  208 
Norton,  the  Hon.  Mrs.,  207 

O  B  E  R  A  M  M  E  R  G  A  U         P  a  S  S  i  O  n 

Play,  25,  95 
O'Brien,  Barrv,  417 
O'Brien,  Edward,  11,  12,  219 
O'Brien,    Judge    (William),    and 

the     Phoenix     Park     murder 

trials,   196,   198 
O'Connell,    Daniel,    7,    96,    113, 

193,  401,  408 
O'Connell,   Mrs.   (nee  Bianconi), 

197 
O'Connor,    Morris,    Judge,    324, 

325 
O'Dwyer,  Bishop,  and  Irish  Uni- 
versity question,  332,  333 
Old  Age  Pensions,  374-5 
O'Shea,  Mrs.,  265 

Palmer,  Sir  Roundell,  see  Sel- 
borne,  Earl  of 

Palmer,  William,  54 

Parker,  C.  S.,  his  .Sir  Robert  Peel, 
263 

Parnell,  Charles  Stewart,  159, 
160,  162,  193,  194,  244,  247, 
264,  265,  271-2,  367,  369-70 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  203 

Pelham,  Thomas,  political  corre- 
spondence of,  234 

Pelly,  Sir  Lewis,  death  of,  281 

Personal  Recollections  of  O'Con- 
nell, O'Neill  Daunt,  143 

Phelps,  E.  I.,  238 

Pliilpotts,  Bishop,  152 


Phoenix  Park  murders,  the,  192, 

193,    194;    trial    of    assfxasina, 

196,  198 
Picot,    M.    Georges,    on    Lecky, 

294,  417 
Pitt,  William,  222,  223,  263 
Pius     IX.,     and     the     African 

Bishop,    77 
Plunkct,    David,   see  Rathmore, 

Lord 
Plunkett,  Sir  Horace,  his  services 

to  Ireland,  341,  366,  373,  418; 

his  election  opposed,  386,  387 
Poems,  Lecky,  267,  268 
Political   Value   of  History,  The, 

Lecky,  280 
Pollock,  Sir  Frederick  and  Lady, 

105 
Pope  Hennessy,  Sir  John,  141 
Pope,   Rev.   Richard,   hvnm  by, 

1S3 
Prendergast,        John        Patrick, 

author     of     The     Cromwellian 

Settlement,  124,  127,  195,  197 
Prestwich,  Dr.  Joseph,  239 
Prolegomena    of    the    History    of 

Religions,  Reville,  211 

Rathmore,  Lord  (David  Phm- 
ket),  11,  17,  20,  43,  96,  266, 
276,  357;  elevation  of,  to  the 
peerage,  308;  the  Irish  Uni- 
versity question,  336;  his 
speech  on  the  imveiling  of 
Lecky's  statue,  407-8,  419-20 

Reay,  Donald,  11th  Baron,  205 

Rebellion  of  1798,  Centenary  of, 
366 

Redmond,  John,  365,  393 

Reeve,  Henry,  44,  46,  104,  139, 
203,  293,  295;    death,  310 

Reeves,  Bishop,  384 

Reid,  Stuart,  his  Life  of  Lord 
John  Russell,  .300 

Religious  Tendencies  of  the  Age, 
Lecky,  appearance  of,  22; 
comment  on,  22-3,  51;  refer- 
ence to,  20,  24,  97,  255 


430 


WILLIAM    EDWARD   HARTPOLE    LECKY 


Reminiscences,  Carlyle,  174,  175, 

177,  208 
Renan,  Ernest,  86,  162 
Reville,    Albert,     cited    on    the 

'Rationalism,'     49-50;      Ilib- 

bert  Lecturer,   211;    cited  on 

Lecky's  style,  204 
Rhodes,  James  Ford,  his  History 

of  the  United  States,  290,  306-7 
Riaiio,  Mme.  de,  189 
Ripon,  George,  1st  Marquess  of, 

and  British  Copyright  Act,  301 
Ristori,  Mme.,  25,  37,   136,   194 
Ritter,  Dr.  I.  H.,  121 
Roberts,     Earl,     his     Forty-one 

Years  in  India,  347;  referred 

to,  382,  395,  397,  401,  404-5 
Robertson,  David,  304 
Romanoff,  House  of,  81 
Roosevelt,    President,    and    the 

Map  of  Life,  379 
Rosebery,    Archibald,    5th    Earl 

of,  295-6 
Rouher,  M.,  85 
Royal   Commission   on  taxation 

(1896),  337  et  seq,  357-8 
Royal    Institution,    lectures    at, 

62,  64-5,  105 
Royal  Literary  Fund,  270,  411 
Rusden,  George  Wdliam,   corre- 
spondence with,  320,  393,  401, 

406 
Russell,  Lord  Arthur,  105;  death 

of,  281 
Russell,    Earl    (Lord   John),   58, 

74,   78,   79,   93,   97,   104,   130, 

251;    death  of,  199 
Russell,  Hon.  Rollo,  300 
Russell,   Rt.   Hon.  T.  W.,   233, 

393 
Russell,  Lady  William,  105 
Russia,    Lecky's    'Rationalism' 

suppressed   in,    97;   and   Con- 
stantinople, 130 

St.    Albans,    Duchess   of,    197; 

Duke  and  Duchess  of,  233 
Salisbury,  Robert,  3rd  Marquess 


of,  98,  132,  214,  231,  270,  288; 
death,  415 

Salmon,  Dr.,  276,  348,  361;  on 
Lecky's  Map  of  Life,  379 

Samuels,  Mrs.,  312 

Saunderson,  Col.,  325,  338,  359, 
365 

Scharf,  Sir  George,  268 

Scherer,  M.,  62 

Scott,  Sir  Charles,  11 

Selborne,  Roundell,  1st  Earl  of, 
61,  218;  Memorials  of  the  Earl 
of,  367 

Senior,  Nassau  William,  his 
'  Conversations '  with  leading 
Frenchmen,  150;  his  'Con- 
versations on  Ireland,'  209 

Sermoneta,  Duke  de,  78,  99 

Sherman,  General,  99 

Shore,  Canon  Teignmouth,  11 

Simpson,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  105 

Sligo,  Isabelle,  Marcliioness  of, 
415  and  note 

Smit,  General,  200 

Smith,  Adam,  cited  on  Burke, 
352 

Smith,  Prof.  W.  Robertson,  176 

Snagge,  Sir  Thomas,  11,  15,  24 

Somerville,  Mrs.,  53 

Sophia,  Queen  of  the  Nether- 
lands, descent  of,  81 ;  character 
and  qualities  of,  82;  political 
s3Tnpathies  of,  83;  gives  Mrs. 
Lecky's  wedding-breakfast,  95; 
illness  and  death,  134-6;  refer- 
ence to,  89,  97,  103,  131 

Souvenirs  de  TocqueviUe,  287 

Spedding,  James,  104 

Spencer,  Herbert,  105;  regulates 
his  work,  118;  his  theories, 
120-1,  122;  his  'Sociology,' 
130;  meets  M.  Renan,  163;  at 
United  Service  Club,  210-1 

Spencer,  John,  5th  Earl,  195,  213 

Stanhope,  Lady,  cited  on  the 
'Rationalism,'  48 

Stanhope,  Lord,  historian,  93 

Stanley,  Dean,  71,  81,  104,  139; 


INDEX 


431 


his    'elections'    sermon,    165; 

and  Carlyle's  burial,  173,  174; 

death,  180 
Stanley,  I^ady  (of  Alderley),  104, 

105,  174,  266 
Stanley,  Mrs.,  letter  of,  7 
Stansfeld,  Sir  James,  Gl 
Stephen,  Sir  James,  104,  215,  21G 
Stephen,  Mrs.  Leslie,  94  and  note, 

104 
Stephen,    Sir    Leslie,    104,    176; 

his    English    Thought    in    the 

Eighteenth   Century,    133;     his 

article  on  Newman,  257 
Stebbing,  Rev.  Thomas  Roscoo, 

305 
Stokes,  Dr.,  50 

Stokes,  Professor  Whitley,  384 
Stokes,  Margaret  M'Nair,  124 
Story,  W.  W.,  99 
Stratford,  Lady  Harriet,  2,  3 
Stratford,    de    Redcliffe,    Lord, 

93;    life  of,  332 
Survey    of    English    Ethics,     A, 

Lecky,  71 
Swanwnck,  Anna,  409 
Swift,  Dean,  8,  11,  130,  408 

Tallents,    Francis,    character 

of,  4 
Tallents,     Godfrey,     brother    of 

Francis,  4-5 
Tallents,  Godfrey,  son  of  W.  E. 

Tallents,  5,  44 
Tallents,    Marv  Anne,    marriage 

of,  1-2;  birth  of  Lecky,  5-6 
Tallents,  W.  E.,  4-5 
Talleyrand,  81 
Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  93,  104,  107, 

W8;  on  the  History  of  England, 

142-3;    and  Carlyle,  173,  174, 

175,176;  his 'Autobiography,' 

206-7 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  68,  104, 

163,  174,  179,  216;  death,  281 
Tennyson,  Hallam,  Lord,  281 
Thackeray,  Miss,  104 
'The  Club,'  120,  415 


Thirty  Years  of  Financial  Policy, 

Northcote,  127 
Thompson,  Sir  John,  and  British 

Copyright  Act,  301 
Ticknor,  George,  51 
Transvaal  Deputation,  the,  199, 

200 
Trevelyan,  Rt.  Hon.  Sir  George 

Otto,  93,  105,  193,  315 
Truth  about  Home  Rule,  The,  237 
Tulloch,   John   (Principal  of  St. 

Andrews).  206 
Turkey  and  Russia,  146 
Tyler,  Dr.,  cited  on  the  History 

of  England,  186 
Tyndall,    Professor    John,     105, 

173,  174,  262,  273 

Venables,  Mr.,  104,  107,  415 
Vere,  Aubrey  de,  142,  267 
Vico,  69 
Victoria,    Queen,    270,    376;    in 

Ireland,  384-5;  death,  391-2; 

as  a  Moral  Force,  392 
Villari,  Professor  Luigi,  382 
Villiers,  Charles,  105 

Wallace,    Sir   Donald   Macken- 
zie, his  History  of  Russia,  133 
Walpole,   Sir  Spencer,  his  'His- 
tory,' 150 
Walsh,  Archbishop,  213 
Walsingham,        Thomas,        6th 

Baron,  265 
Warburton,  Richard,  75 
Watts,     George     Frederick,     his 

portrait  of  Leckv,   146 
Webb,  Judge  Thomas  E.,  153 
Wells,     Henry     Tanworth,     his 

portrait  of  Lecky,  239 
Whately,  Archbishop,  14,  207 
Wliite, '  Dr.    Andrew,    50,    186, 
228-9;  his  History  of  the  War- 
fare of  Science  with  Theology, 
328-9 
White,  Miss,  371 
Whiteside,    James,    Lord    Chief 
Justice,  17 


432 


WILLIAM   EDWARD   HARTPOLE   LECKY 


Why  Home  Rule  is  Undesirable, 

Lecky,  262 
Wilhelmina,    Queen,    coronation 

of,  369 
Williams,  Sir  Fenwick,  133 
Wills,  Rev.  Freeman,  11,  47,  262 
Wilmot,  Miss,  first  marriage  of, 
6;  second  marriage  of,  10;  see 
also  Carnwath,  Lady- 
Wilson,  Sir  Arthur,  11 
Wolseley,  Lord,  205,  213,  27G 
Wolseley,  Lady,  205,  276 
Women's  Liberal  Unionist  Asso- 
ciation, 382 
Wright,     George,     K.C.     (after- 


wards the  Hon.  Mr.  Justice), 

stands  for  Dublin  University, 

309,  311 
Wrixon,  Sir  Henry,  11;  his  Jacob 

Shumite,  414  and  note 
Wiirtemburg,  House  of,  81;  King 

of,  136 
Wyse,  Miss,  113 

Yeats,     W.     B.,     his     Countess 

Kathleen,  375-6 
Young    Ireland,    Gavan    Duffy, 

141 

Zola,  his  'Debacle,'  279 


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